Project Overview

The Lead Agency Consortium—a group of youth and child mental health clinics that represent Ontario’s 33 service areas—hired Intent to create a name and brand for their revolutionary teen mental health service. The online program was to be the first of its kind: a 24-hour mental health line for children and youth who needed single-session services, as well as for those who may need longer term care. 

Our primary challenge was to develop a name, and corresponding messaging that not only spoke to children and youth, but that inspired confidence in parents, caregivers, educators, and clinicians. It was therefore critical throughout this process to engage multiple stakeholder groups to ensure that we were on the right track every step of the way. We created several working groups, and met with them regularly to gain insight, source opinions, and better understand their point of view, so that these insights could be reflected back in our work.

Insights

It became clear that with so many varied perspectives in the working groups, it would be difficult to gain complete consensus. With competing priorities and even different viewpoints, it became obvious that finding a quick solution would be a challenge. To mitigate this risk we produced a weekly summary of all activities and disseminated it to all working groups. This allowed for a much more collaboratively focused team that operated as a cohesive unit, rather than individually-focused agencies. We also made sure to present all of our recommendations, including naming, messaging, logo design, and branded elements to all groups so that each felt truly a part of the process. 

The core insight from our consulting activities was that the brand needed to be direct and to-the-point. New generations, while they appreciate creativity, do not suffer fools easily. They want authenticity, honesty, and directness; and our work was steered by this insight.

Solutions

The result was a name that told users exactly what to expect—One Stop Talk. A promise that, should they need only a single session of counseling, they would be taken care of; if they needed longer-term care, the trained clinicians and intake specialists would work towards finding them continued counseling services online, or in their community. The service was designed to provide a single, 90-minute phone call that could help both in times of crisis, and connect the callers to community supports for long term care. 

We designed the logo to reflect speech bubbles, another indication of what the service provided. A clean, sans serif font was chosen as a frank, direct, and straightforward typeface that told users that there were no frills, only solutions. We developed a range of branded messaging points that will serve as a strong foundation for the program to build on.

Additionally, all work had to be in both official languages, and so an alternate French name and logo was developed by Intent for use with Ontario French audiences.

The brand launched in 2022, and the agencies have been busy building out the technological framework for the program ever since. OneStopTalk officially launched in Spring 2023.