ban.do's goal is to create products with an optimistic and emotionally-resonant tone that make our customers feel good. At the surface, we're about fun and happiness, but we also care a lot about how you get to and maintain a state of good mental health—because that's pretty imperative to feeling good. Through both our products and marketing, we champion themes such as self-care, self-expression, friendship, optimism, and resilience.
One in five adults in America experience mental illness in a given year, and often the stigmas associated with mental illness cause many to stay silent versus seeking support and/or treatment.
The Jen Gotch x Iconery collection aims to destigmatize mental illness and create open conversations about how you get to and maintain a state of good mental health, while encouraging others to seek help and knowledge about their feelings and symptoms without shame.
100% of the net proceeds of the Jen Gotch x Iconery collection are donated to Bring Change to Mind, a non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging dialogue about mental health and to raising awareness, understanding, and empathy.
Jen hopes that by sharing her story she'll inspire others to also build awareness and more importantly encourage people to connect with one another—because no one is alone.
Last December, ban.do's founder and chief creative officer, Jen Gotch, had an idea to create two necklaces—one Anxiety and one Depression—merely to take a small action to help people open up conversations about mental health, work to reduce the stigmas around mental illness, and donate money to a cause ban.do believed in. She had seen a positive response to the personal stories of her own mental illness she shared on Instagram and felt like it was time to do more. In March 2018, ban.do launched the Jen Gotch x Iconery collection.
This was a passion project for her and something we always expected to be a quick in and out, but after the necklaces sold out in a few hours, we realized we had happened upon something that could grow to be much more meaningful to our team, our brand, and our community.
The collection now consists of nameplate necklaces featuring the words Anxiety, Depression, and Bipolar (all diagnoses Jen personally has), 7.8, the ideal number on the emotional ratings system Jen and her mom created to check in, and Resilience—by definition, the ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity, or the like.
100% of the net proceeds of the Jen Gotch x Iconery collection will always be donated to Bring Change to Mind, a non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging dialogue about mental health and to raising awareness, understanding, and empathy.
In May 2018, ban.do donated 1% of all sales on bando.com to Bring Change to Mind for Mental Health Awareness Month.
As of August 2018, the brand has donated over $80k to the organization.
During Mental Health Awareness Month, to further engage with our audience beyond product, we created Feel Better an online destination for customers to read more about our initiative, find resources to get help, and learn about Jen's emotional rating system. Jen humbly asked her loyal and open following on instagram to allow her to start sharing their stories with the broader ban.do audience to help each other feel less alone. The request was met with hundreds of heartfelt letters about suffering and strength, tragedy and resilience, coping, pain, happiness, and optimism. These now live on the site under "Letters to Jen."
Offline, ban.do hosts a monthly Honor Roll, a free advice series where we come together with our community and share what we have learned from our experiences in both business and life. In May, the session focused on mental health.
Ban.do will work to move forward with the campaign beyond the necklaces. We will expand and redefine the scope of our brand, and look for new and more meaningful ways to have a positive impact on our community and the world at large.
100% of proceeds donated to Bring Change to Mind
Over 100K engagements across ban.do social posts
Approx 450 tagged social posts so far (including public + private posts)
The first two necklaces sold out within 4 hours of launching
After the necklaces sold out, the brand restocked in May and saw a 75% increase in user traffic and 96% increase in page views on bando.com
Press:
25 press hits with over 255 million media impressions, including features from WWD, Psychology Today, Refinery29, and more
Testimonial from Bring Change to Mind:
"It's so critical for people to have open and honest conversations about mental health. It is a topic that affects us all and once we normalize words like depression, anxiety, and bipolar, we take the fear and stigma away. What ban.do and Jen Gotch are doing to launch a national conversation about this issue will undoubtedly encourage more people to seek help and treatment, and save lives. BC2M is excited and proud to be their partner in this work." – Pamela Harrington, Bring Change to Mind Executive Director
