Competitor Research For RSA Animation

RSA Animates

For research I looked into my competitors, companies that either have similar style of animations or charities that fund and carry out metal health work.

The first competitor is RSA Animates. “The RSA Animate series was conceived as an innovative, accessible and unique way of illustrating and sharing the world-changing ideas from the RSA's free public events programme.” It’s an ever building series of animations in collaboration with Cognitive. The animations include pressing social matters or revolutionary ideas, stemmed from RSA audio and video files.

Personally these animations don’t resonate with me, I think they are very long and it’s quite easy to lose interest. It’s also not very well known; you would only know of them if you knew about and studied RSA. I plan that my animation will be shorter and more to the point and I hope to reach a wider audience.

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RSA Shorts

The RSA Shorts series provides a snapshot of a big idea, blending voices from the RSA public events programme and the creative talents of illustrators and animators from around the world. They are created to awaken the curiosity in us. Again using RSA audio and video files but this time to create short animations.

Similarly to RSA animates they have a very niche audience and you wouldn't know of them unless you followed RSA. By being shown in schools, which is what I plan to do with my animation, it will reach a bigger target audience on a wider scale, meaning children can get an awareness and the help needed.

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Time to Change

Time to change are a main competitor as they are a social movement to try and remove the stigma around mental health. They offer assemblies, sessions and lesson plans for schools all based around how to deal with students/friends/class mates who are suffering, what to do if you’re suffering yourself and early warning signs. “It's hard enough to experience mental health problems, without having to face the judgement, shame and isolation that often surrounds them. That's why we want to end mental health discrimination.”

Although these are very good, they require a lot of planning in advance. They are also very long winded, this will keep the attention of those that relate to it but in an assembly of 100+ pupils not everyone will take something away from it. My animation will be shorter and won’t require the same amount of time but it’s an idea that it potentially could go hand in hand with something like this.

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Mind

Mind is a mental health charity that offers written support and help online. “We provide advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem. We campaign to improve services, raise awareness and promote understanding.” They have information and advice on a wide range of mental health topics as well as training courses to help you better understand and support people with mental health problems.

This is an amazing charity that rely solely on donations but you need to research mental health to find this; It’s not something that’s very well known. My animation will hopefully reach a larger audience but similarly to Time to Change this is another company this would work alongside, as my animation could bring attention to websites like this.

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Samaritans

Samaritans is mental health charity with a 24 hour helpline for those who need someone to talk to confidentially, either through a phone call or text message/ direct messages. They also offer training days in the workplace to teach people to deal with emotional situations. “We support workplaces with a range of programmes including our Wellbeing in the Workplace eLearning tool and our in-house and open workplace training courses.”

This isn't necessarily a competitor as its for employment and general services but it has similar idea, based on removing the stigma of mental health. My aim is for my animation to do the same thing in schools. Again using my animation to bring attention to this charity as somewhere you can go to get help.

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