Each year 1 in 4 young Australians will experience a mental illness, and many will face these problems alone and not seek help. Sometimes this is because they do not realise they need help, but, more often than not, it is because they are embarrassed or because of a perceived stigma. Mental Health services such as general practitioners, Beyond Blue, and lifeline are intangible service products and the behaviour of help-seeking is for most people an unsought consumer product.

Headspace aims to help young people (12-25 year olds) with mental health issues and improve the well-being of young Australians. Headspace firmly believes that addressing mental health issues at an early stage will help decrease the severity of the illness, therefore having positive impact on well-being, reducing economic challenges and reducing the risk of suicide. As a non-for-profit organisation, Headspace is reliant upon government funding, voluntary support, corporate sponsorships and charitable donations to ensure free and/or affordable help is available for all youth.

Uniqueness

The vision of the organisation is to improve young people's mental, social and emotional well-being through the provision of high-quality, integrated services when and where they are most needed. One of the unique aspects of Headspace is ensuring that a comfortable and relatable environment was created. In order to do so, they actively engage and seeks input from their collaborative youth mental health reference groups. As such the design of the Headspace physical centres don't have the same look or feel as a traditional clinical service.

Social media

Headspace are active users of social media as a platform to its target audience and communicate its message. The organisation chooses its content strategically, using relatable and relevant language, and being tactical and well organised in terms of the flow of information. It utilises YouTube presence and uses the video on other online platforms to generate cross-traffic. Headspace is also a regular consumer of paid advertisements on various social media channels, predominately Facebook. By promoting these posts, it ensures greater visibility, as the post will appear on people's news feed. Headspace's use of search engine optimisation techniques and AdWords has successfully gained the organisation high results in search rankings on Google.

What strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) are faced by HeadSpace. Use the information in the case, as well as your understanding of marketing theories and frameworks to identify and describe points under each of the SWOT headings [5 marks].