Toward Destigmatization of Mental Health: The Institutional Role of Advertising

Mental health conditions represent one of the most pressing health challenges of the twenty-first century. Given the global prevalence, high cost, and profound consequences of mental disorders, the marketplace has become a critical arena for advancing mental health awareness and destigmatization. This paper examines how brands promote mental health awareness and seek to mitigate mental health stigma through advertising. Inspired by transformative advertising research, we use institutional theory as our enabling lens and examine brand advertising as institutional work. Using a grounded theory-inspired Gioia method, we analyze 176 advertisements on mental health awareness. The findings reveal three forms of institutional work—advocating, educating, and motivating—that are utilized by brands and suggest mechanisms through which they can lead to destigmatization of mental health issues. By focusing on the institutional role of advertising in raising awareness and facilitating destigmatization of mental health issues, this study contributes to transformative advertising research. It extends strategies that promote mental health awareness and reduce mental health stigma. By considering advertising as institutional work, the study highlights connections amongst macro–meso–micro levels of analyses in destigmatization processes.