Source: Shutterstock/Everything Bagel
“There’s more complexity in people’s situations and reasons for contact.”
This the perspective from NABS director of wellbeing services and culture change, Lorraine Jennings-Creed. 2025 was a record year for the charity, which supports the mental wellness of people working in the UK advertising, marketing and media industries. The advice line received more than 5,300 calls, most of which were from marketers seeking support for their mental wellness.
Most callers highlighted specific mental health concerns, alongside work pressures, low mood, confidence and bereavement. Mental health concerns made up two thirds of NABS’ mental wellness calls last year, coinciding with a noticeable uptick in requests for “deeper support”. Last year, NABS helped 17% more people access one-to-one counselling.
“The nature of need across the industry has shifted,” notes Jennings-Creed.
“People are coming to NABS with more layered, longer-term challenges – combining emotional pressure, job instability, caring responsibilities, neurodivergence and financial strain.”
The experience at NABS is reflected in Marketing Week’s 2026 Career & Salary Survey. Almost two-thirds (65%) of the 2,350 respondents have felt overwhelmed over the past 12 months, with 61% left feeling undervalued and over half (55%) emotionally exhausted.
Worryingly, more than two-fifths (43%) of the total sample don’t feel like they can tell their manager or the wider business how they are feeling.
What works for my team, may not work for your team. Know your team, be authentic, and just start.
Tanya O’Brien, NB Power
Jennings-Creed isn’t surprised by the scale of the distress, especially given the pace of change, global volatility and political upheaval. She also sees interesting shifts at play.
“Anecdotally, you’d often hear people years ago say they moved into marketing or client side to reclaim more of that work-life balance and purpose. What’s quite interesting in the Marketing Week survey is that hasn’t come through,” says Jennings-Creed.
“You’re hearing something that’s more consistent with the core of the advertising industry.”
One leader looking to change the conversation is Tanya O’Brien, marketing director at Canadian energy firm NB Power, who describes psychological safety and wellness as a top priority.
“When you can move away from a place of being scared of looking like you’re not busy enough to a place where you’re working on the business – instead of in the business – it can change things and you build trust,” she explains.
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That said, in the wider industry O’Brien sees the pressure leaders are under to deliver at speed on constrained budgets, while at the same time supporting team wellbeing with potentially little to no training.
“It’s hard to have 15 people on your team in a good place where the world is right now,’” she notes.
Leaders need to do a better job of advocating for themselves, taking their own advice and then role modelling, O’Brien suggests. Rather than escalating issues, she advises her senior peers to “walk, not run” and remove the sense of panic that prevents people thinking clearly.
Recently, a member of her team put the wrong website address on a piece of direct mail going out to 50,000 people. While clearly an issue from a lead generation and corporate reputation perspective, such is O’Brien’s relationship with her team they knew they could admit their mistake and come armed with a solution.
“They had a plan. They were like: ‘Well, we’re going to redirect that URL and we’re going to let the contact centre know just in case somebody gets in touch.’ In other organisations, someone could have lost their head over that, freaked out. It doesn’t do anybody any good as leaders to escalate things,” she explains.
“You need to do the exact opposite. I guarantee you that employee will always check a URL on anything they print next time. It’s learning lessons and keeping things in perspective.”
Quiet90
O’Brien also has a novel take on protecting her team’s time and energy. During Covid she observed a shift to being accessible 24/7, which didn’t feel like a healthy dynamic.
So, three years ago she introduced Quiet90. Every Tuesday afternoon her team put themselves on out of office for 90 minutes. No Teams, no email, just time set aside to think and reset. Rather than getting push back from the wider organisation, O’Brien first had to navigate scepticism within her own team.
“‘No way, we’re not going to be able to do that.’ And I’m like: ‘Why not? You go on vacation and you’re not available. Just put yourself on out of office for 90 minutes. The entire team will be, I’ll let all of our stakeholders know. If they have a problem, they have my cell number.’ Nobody has ever called my cell in three years because there’s a marketing emergency. They don’t have to,” she explains.
Within three months Quiet90 had become “sacred time”, meaning there would need to be extenuating circumstances to book a meeting during that time.
People are coming to NABS with more layered, longer-term challenges – combining emotional pressure, job instability, caring responsibilities, neurodivergence and financial strain.
Lorraine Jennings-Creed, NABS
“People will say: ‘Well, how do you know they’re working during those 90 minutes?’ I don’t care, quite honestly, because I don’t measure people on how many hours their butt is on the seat. I measure them on, are they getting their job done?” says O’Brien.
“I trust my team enough to say, if they needed that 90 minutes to go hang out on the couch with their dog, they must really need it. Because I built a strong team. I know my team. I trust them. They all have great character. They care about the business.”
Quiet90 is supplemented by quarterly wellness sessions, which have covered everything from ergonomics to mental and financial health. Once the marketers even did an improv class.
“Whoever’s doing it has to come to me with two options. It’s got to be well thought out. They’ve got to convince me that I’m going to invest in this and the budgets are small. We don’t spend even $2,000 (£1,080) per quarter on this and I’ve got 15 people,” she explains.
“It’s very small. The ROI of someone going on sick leave versus me doing wellness things is like 10 times.”
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Organising a wellness session is also an “informal leadership opportunity” for anyone in the team to present to O’Brien and showcase their skills. She insists building a trusted culture is key to attracting and retaining talent.
“I don’t lose people honestly. My engagement score this last year was 92%, which is pretty amazing. Bringing this back to business, because we’ve created this culture, because we have open conversations, we spend time together, we care for each other it does help the business,” O’Brien adds.
“There’s a question in our engagement survey that says ‘I fully understand how my work contributes to our strategic plan.’ 100%. So, 100% of my people feel that they are personally contributing to the wellness of the business. That doesn’t happen by accident.”
Peer support
Fractional CMO and former BrewDog global head of marketing, Sarah Warman, trained as a mental health first aider during her 12 years at the Scottish brewer. By the time she left in 2025 there were around 200 mental health first aiders in the business.
BrewDog had a wellbeing lead responsible for co-ordinating the first aiders, ensuring they had monthly catch-ups on issues that might be affecting colleagues, alongside organising training webinars run by MHFA England.
Warman explains the role of mental health first aider is about signposting, understanding and active listening.
“You’re not becoming a counsellor. The idea is to make you aware of the signals and symptoms to look for, and at what point you should escalate, versus at what point you should signpost that individual to find support,” she says.
“Whether that is getting them to speak to a colleague, a family member, or maybe they do need to escalate it to their GP or a counsellor. Or whether it is a crisis situation and it’s your responsibility to call 999. All of those things I have found hugely valuable.”
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Most of her work was peer-level support. Mental health first aiders with relevant personal experience were often asked to respond to business-wide callouts for help. Typically Warman found people were happier opening up to someone completely separate to their department or team.
After an initial conversation, she would ask if that person wanted a follow up chat, leaving the door open for future conversations.
“I would always leave that conversation with ‘Shall I follow-up in X amount of time?’ depending on the situation. There was always that opportunity to continue the conversation and that connection,” Warman explains.
It is crucial businesses recognise the importance of mental health first aid training, she argues, describing suicide awareness training as “non-negotiable”.
“There are certain requirements in the UK in terms of how many people you can have in an office without having a first aider. You need first aid training for physical things that might go wrong, but there’s not that requirement for mental health first aid,” Warman points out.
“But it’s super important because you could essentially save a life. I don’t see why you wouldn’t do that as an employer.”
Finding allies
Managers are crucial to improving the mental health and morale of their teams. NABS’ All Ears community consultation in 2023 found 42% of people experiencing mental wellness issues would take them to their line manager first.
However, the charity also found managers are not always prepared with the best way to respond or have the tools to suggest an appropriate next step.
“Often, they’re not equipped. They don’t know what to do with it. They might have policy, but what we found was a real gap between what is policy and what’s practice,” says Jennings-Creed.
There is also the challenge for managers to understand where the boundary lies, as they are “not expected to be therapists” or fix every issue.
In response, NABS created the ‘Managers’ Mindsets’ programme to help marketers lead with empathy and confidence, while protecting their own mental wellness. The programme mixes workshops with speed mentoring and 90-minute coaching sessions.
You need first aid training for physical things that might go wrong, but there’s not that requirement for mental health first aid.
Sarah Warman
For Jennings-Creed, whether it’s attending a workshop or calling the confidential NABS advice line, one small action can help alleviate “the panic” and provide a sense of agency.
“Often, it can feel like the control has been taken away. There’s a lack of control over their situation. Then there’s a disempowerment that goes along with that. Then the paralysis,” she notes.
Kickstarting the conversation and exploring options to help people take back control is crucial, well before it gets to the point they’re considering leaving the industry. Jennings-Creed is a big believer in the power of community, which she sees as linked to resilience given forming connections stops people feeling isolated.
“On a very simple level, finding an ally, someone trusted you can talk to in the workplace is important, but obviously if you don’t feel safe enough to do that NABS is always there,” she adds.
O’Brien’s advice for leaders is to be vulnerable, human and just start somewhere. For example, she came armed to a recent off-site with a pack of Post-it notes to help her team create a “gratitude walk” on the hotel wall.
“At first, I got the groans. Just like with Quiet90. ‘It’s such a Tanya thing.’ But people started to put them up there and read them. The wall was just this beautiful visual of all this gratitude,” she recalls.
“What was even more interesting is I collected them and gave them to each person who was referred to. Everybody got to walk away with these Post-it notes.”
Several team members subsequently told O’Brien they took the notes home to show their families. Her point is, change can be small but still meaningful.
“Just try something. It might be a flop. It might be one of the greatest things that you ever did. And it cost us $1.50 to do that activity. It doesn’t have to be fancy, it just has to be authentic to your team,” she explains.
“What works for my team may not work for your team. Know your team, be authentic and just start.”
Marketing Week will continue reporting from our 2026 Career & Salary Survey over the coming weeks.
