What began in 2023 as a discreet room at Scandinavia’s biggest beach festival has year-by-year evolved into a full ecosystem offering direct access to professional mental health support. The Breathing Space has steadily grown into a national mental-health initiative from Norway’s largest insurance company, Gjensidige, created to support GenZ where they need it most, in the spaces where they already are. Delivered in partnership with NGO MentalHelseUngdom(MHU), the now many spaces provide low-threshold, stigma-free entry to help in-person, or instant connectivity to MHU’s digital chat service.
The idea was simple yet radical: Meet young people in environments defined by noise and pressure, and offer them quiet, empathy, and someone to talk to.
At the end of 2024 we strengthened our activations at festivals, scaled up nationally, and in 2025 we built a permanent installation at Unity Arena, and launched a mobile unit visiting youth sports tournaments, match day events, concerts, student weeks and cinemas. Celebrities, athletes, nurses and colleagues were enlisted in pre-and post-campaigns. The Breathing Space has in the last 15 months seen brand impact mirroring social impact, becoming a national symbol of trust, transforming traditional brand sponsorships into life-saving interventions. Awareness doubled, in-person conversations nearly tripled, we got 10,500 campaign site visits (+1,200%), and 58% increase in nationwide help-chat usage. Gjensidige’s GenZ reputation rose sharply, “cares about youth mental health” rose by 430%.
Blending care, creativity, and cultural insight, demonstrated how a brand can be strengthened by living its purpose authentically -safeguarding life, one conversation at a time.
