These outcomes were the result of #FineNotFine, Amazon’s first multi-channel mental health and wellbeing campaign.
It was designed to raise awareness and drive real behaviour change.
Launched in 2023, the campaign combined digital storytelling, physical activations, leadership visibility, and practical tools. It marked a clear commitment from the internal comms team: mental health is a business-critical issue, and it deserves open, ongoing conversation backed by action.
“We prioritised mental health and well-being in the UK & Ireland in 2023 based on powerful drivers,” Jade Griffiths, Head of Internal Communications, for UK and Ireland, tells In.Comms.
“These included the extent of people in the UK struggling with poor mental health, which was exacerbated during and post pandemic; new external global research citing the importance of managers in supporting employees’ mental health; and low awareness of available mental health resources within Amazon.”
The campaign began with a simple but powerful insight: most people say they are “fine” even when they are not. Alongside this, new research revealed that managers can have more impact on employees’ mental health than doctors, therapists, or even spouses.
Griffiths adds: “Being Amazon, and extremely data-led, we also wanted internal data in order to be able to track our progress, and created an internal survey in partnership with UK mental health charity – Mind – which gave us key insights into which elements to prioritise, for example, better signposting to existing mental health resources.”
The campaign balanced emotional storytelling with clear signposting. “We created this campaign to appeal to both hearts and minds, looking at the practical approach of sharing important free internal resources, as well as connecting with our audience on a deeper, emotive level through powerful, raw and honest storytelling through a four-part leadership voices video series,” says Griffiths.
“In the background, we worked closely with our manager community to upskill them with new mental health training to ensure they felt confident and equipped to support their teams should they proactively raise mental health concerns in response to this campaign, and equally help leaders to spot the signs of poor mental health and know where to find expert help.”
Tone was a deliberate focus. Griffiths says the team had reviewed other mental health campaigns and often found the messaging too soft or passive. “‘It’s OK not to be OK’ was everywhere,” she explained. “We felt there was room to be bolder and more active in our tone.”
Rather than simply acknowledging issues, the team wanted to encourage action - helping employees feel better informed, supported and able to access resources. “Is it really OK to let someone not be OK and leave it at that?” she says. “Or should we do whatever we can to help them deal with it - especially inside Amazon, where we have brilliant resources available?”
That attitude shaped the campaign’s tone and design. #FineNotFine was deliberately styled to stand out, with a punk-inspired aesthetic that took cues from DIY posters and fanzines. “We needed something that would feel different to other internal campaigns,” Griffiths says. “Something made by the people, for the people - but with Amazon’s colours and voice.”
A standout result of the campaign was the sharp rise in manager engagement with mental health training. To drive this, the team launched a sub-campaign specifically targeting Amazon’s manager population. It kicked off with a message from the country VP, introducing #FineNotFine and encouraging participation in a new training programme developed with mental health charity Mind.
This was followed by a three-part email series that highlighted the role of leaders in fostering positive mental health, supported by relevant stats and research. Senior leaders were also invited to act as advocates, sharing their experiences and encouraging uptake through internal forums.
The campaign ran across all internal channels, including intranet features, mobile push notifications, digital screens, email, lift posters, and coffee machine panels. But it was also brought to life through physical activations, office branding, and immersive content.
“Our multi-channel comms strategy rolled out across all available internal channels,” says Griffiths.
The campaign, which was Highly Commended at the PRWeek UK Awards 2024 for the Internal Communications and Employee Engagement category, was rolled out across multiple internal channels, including the employee intranet, mobile notifications, digital signage, email, and even lift and coffee machine screens.
The team collaborated with Prime Video’s Head of Communications, Anna Hathaway, who helped deliver an exclusive in-office interview with actor Hugh Jackman. The session focused on The Son, his (then) upcoming film exploring mental health and suicide, and gave employees a rare opportunity to engage with the topic in a deeply personal and memorable way.
Also speaking to In.Comms, Hathaway says of her experience with the actor: “He kindly gave up some time and came to the office to give an exclusive interview to lucky staff members who heard him talk about his challenges filming The Son.
“We then created a ‘pop up’ cinema event where Amazonians that hadn’t been in the room were able to watch the interview and then see the film with food and drinks. On leadership, we embedded messaging and creative into leadership comms and launched our dedicated leadership video series. On the environment, we deployed prominent visual campaign creative throughout our UK&I offices, with large-format billboards, posters, 3D cards, stackable 3D boxes (fully sustainable) and swipe gate vinyls. For the merch, we created #FineNotFine branded lanyards with an info card and scannable QR code to our mental health resources.”
It wasn’t without challenges. “We had to carefully consider our role in a large, complex and matrixed global organisation, with varying and diverse audiences,” says Griffiths.
“Mental health is a tough topic (and talked, or not talked about differently across cultures), and we were extremely sensitive in our approach and helping all stakeholders to feel comfortable in addressing this head on. Through briefings, lunch and learn style sessions, and working with experts in the industry to learn from best practice, helped to keep us on track as we committed to our ambition of ensuring Amazon in the UK and Ireland was leading the way with conversations on mental health in the workplace.”
The campaign achieved measurable success across multiple channels. Manager training completion jumped from just 1 percent to 75 percent, and email engagement rates outperformed the UK average, with more than 14,000 managers reached through dedicated content. A four-part leadership video series, initially created for the UK and Ireland, proved so effective it was shared across Europe and viewed by more than 150,000 employees.
The response wasn’t just in the numbers. One employee wrote in to say: “Normalising the conversations around mental health and equipping people managers to discuss this topic are huge steps forward in the right direction. Thank you for investing and leading the way towards a (mentally) healthier Amazon (and hopefully corporate world).”
The hero campaign film introducing #FineNotFine significantly outperformed previous video benchmarks, reaching nearly 20,000 employees and generating strong engagement across views, clicks and resource downloads. Additional content, including a pop-up cinema competition and the livestreamed Hugh Jackman interview during Mental Health Awareness Week, further boosted visibility and drove thousands more to Amazon’s internal support tools.
Mental health and wellbeing remains a year-round priority for Amazon UK and Ireland, with regular activity tied to key moments in the calendar, such as Mental Health Awareness Week in May and World Mental Health Day in October. “This is an always-on topic within our organisation,” says Griffiths.
Employee-led groups continue to play an active role. In May 2024, the Women at Amazon network collaborated with the Black Employee Network on In Her Words, a campaign highlighting updated support services, including 24/7 counselling, wellness sessions and self-guided tools.
Amazon also runs a speaker series throughout the year. Paralympic gold medallist and OBE recipient Jaco van Gass is among the upcoming guests, sharing his personal journey of resilience and recovery.
Asked what advice they would give to others planning campaigns around mental health, both Griffiths and Hathaway are clear: “Don’t be afraid to tackle the tough topics, lean into the emotive storytelling and don’t forget to bring the creativity, some lightness and a strong, considered multi-channel approach.”