The Ad Council is using a familiar pair of Sesame Street babies to advocate for parents' mental health.
The organization partnered with Sesame Workshop for a new installment of its "Love, Your Mind" mental health campaign.
The PSA focuses on maternal well-being through baby versions of Elmo and Cookie Monster.
The film introduces their mothers to argue that parenting requires care in return, not just caregiving.
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According to Heidi Arthur, chief campaign and program officer at the Ad Council, the goal of the campaign is to reach the audiences who need help:
"Research shows a real need for resources tailored for new moms, who we know are navigating a new set of challenges as they welcome their babies into the world.
"We're proud to partner with Sesame Workshop to encourage moms to take care of their minds and seek support when they need it. And we know that this will help them take care of their little ones, too."
The campaign is available in English and Spanish, reflecting the Ad Council's intent to reach new mothers across language and cultural backgrounds.
Moms Have Something to Say
Sesame Street writer Christine Ferraro wrote the PSA, and Matt Vogel, who puppeteers Kermit the Frog and other Sesame characters, directed it.
The short film opens with Baby Elmo and Cookie Monster's mothers expressing their struggles with motherhood.
"It can feel a bit overwhelming," Cookie Monster's mom says, as she struggles with feeding her child.
Both mothers make the case that taking care of themselves makes them better caregivers for their children.
The campaign extends a long-running collaboration between Ad Council and Sesame Workshop, with efforts aimed at normalizing emotional support for caregivers.
A Platform That Cares
The Ad Council has produced some of the most widely recognized public service campaigns in the U.S. since 1942, spanning road safety and public health.
In 2024, the Ad Council celebrated Smokey Bear's 80th birthday with a campaign inviting the public to carry on his legacy of wildfire prevention awareness.
With "Love, Your Mind," the Ad Council operates as a behavior-change platform, also reinforcing Sesame Workshop's growing role in speaking to the adults around the child.
Three principles from this campaign apply broadly to behavior-change communication:
- Use familiar characters. Audiences process emotional messages faster when they already trust the faces delivering them.
- Emotional vulnerability accelerates trust. Audiences connect more deeply with campaigns that reflect experiences they recognize.
- Build partnerships that last. Long-running collaborations make the message feel more consistent and dependable.
Public service campaigns become more effective when they soften their messaging with emotional storytelling.
Our Take: Can Comfort Carry a Heavy Message?
People respond better to difficult conversations when the message comes from beloved characters.
The Ad Council and Sesame Street treat mental health with care, knowing people can relate but have a hard time talking about it.
That makes the message feel less intimidating for parents already dealing with stress and exhaustion.
The maternal mental health focus is also strategically specific in a way most wellness campaigns avoid.
Postpartum anxiety and depression affect roughly 1 in 5 new mothers in the U.S., yet most public messaging addresses mental health as a broad category.
The Ad Council and Sesame Workshop narrowed the target, which makes the campaign more useful to the people who need it most.
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