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The Movember Foundation launches a different type of ‘Happy Hour’

The Movember Foundation is celebrating ‘Happy Hour’ this month – but all is not as it seems. With the help of Dentsu Aegis Network, the ‘Happy Hour’ campaign hopes to build routine conversations between men and improve New Zealand’s mental health.

Focused around the 5-6pm period using broadcast media, blokes will be encouraged to reach out to friends and family.

Alongside this, brand partners including Lion, Auckland Transport and Spark are helping to spread the message through their owned and social channels. Corporations around New Zealand are also showing their support by allowing staff off work early through November so they can enjoy ‘Happy Hour’.

Robert Dunne, country manager for The Movember Foundation, says:

“We’re asking Kiwi companies, during November, to relax their official working hours. To let their staff down-tools a little bit early and get involved with ‘Happy Hour’. It’s not a lot to ask considering fulltime staff give so much of their life and energy to their jobs already.”

He adds “if less than one of businesses in New Zealand gave each employee one hour this month more than 1 million “happy hours” would be donated to the cause”.

Talking about its support of the campaign, Lion Breweries senior brand manager Kris Hansen says both Speight’s and Movember stand for looking after your mates and honouring good men.

“At Lion, we try to share the importance of spending time with workmates, family and friends throughout the year and ‘Happy Hour’ fits nicely with this.”

And Auckland Transport Group manager of communications Teresa Burnett adds it’s supporting the campaign as mental health is just as important as physical health.

“Your commute on train, bus or ferry is an ideal time to check in with a mate and start a conversation. AT will be placing messaging on buses and trains to remind people to get in touch with friends during the ‘happy hour’ and we’ll be actively encouraging our staff to have conversations with mates during Movember.”

About the idea behind the campaign, Ryan Jordan, strategy director at Dentsu Aegis Network says:

“When it comes to mental health, we tell each other to ‘soldier on’ or ‘suck it up’, or we just ignore mental health issues altogether because they can be difficult to talk about. But this lack of understanding is causing real harm to our society.

“Men in New Zealand need to use their time more effectively to check in on their mates and let them know that they are there when times are tough. Because a little chat can make a big difference.”

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