Love Better youth campaign (phase one, Own the Feels) 

Love Better is a primary prevention campaign aimed at fostering safe, positive, and equal relationships. It is a whole-of-population campaign that aims to disrupt and/or shift harmful discourses and behaviours around relationships that are universal and affect all young people.

Phase one of Love Better was launched in March 2023 and break-ups was chosen as the focus because it was a broad, universally relatable topic that we could delve into with our audience. You can read more about the overall Love Better campaign approach:

Bad experiences (beyond the 'normal' hurt of breaking up) had been experienced by 68% of research respondents. Feeling hurt as a result of a breakup is a normal part of being human. How we respond to that hurt can cause more hurt or even harm to ourselves and others.

A concept was developed that asks young people to "Own the Feels".

"Own the Feels"

This phase was aimed at acknowledging that break-ups hurt but there is a way through without harming yourself or others. The campaign focused on building the skills and knowledge that young people need to safely navigate break-ups, whilst creating a peer-to-peer community to learn from and inspire each other.

Own The Feels had over 450 pieces of content created by more than 77 authors. We had podcasts, written articles, TikToks, videos with musicians, radio spots, TV-on-demand and out-of-home content.

The content was a huge success, garnering over 14,237,744 engagements (likes, comments, views, listens, shares), and we reached 95% of the available audience of 16-24 year olds across all platforms.

Research and evaluation

The campaign had an impact beyond just engagement. Our research and evaluation partner Verian (formerly Kantar Public) found through qualitative evaluation that:

• The campaign was well-received, well liked and appreciated by young people
• The language, look, feel and content resonates with them and there are no discernible differences between gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity in relation to awareness and reception
• Content prompted reflection around hurtful situations and harmful behaviours.

Quantitative evaluation pre and post Own the Feels found that:

• More young people would seek help - 75% (up from 60%)
• Fewer who wouldn't seek help - 25% (down from 40%); of those who wouldn't seek help, the largest population identified as Asian
• More were aware of at least one service/information source; the most well-known being Youthline - 88% (up from 71%)
• Young people who have seen/engaged with the campaign are increasingly seeing break-ups as an opportunity to learn or change - 68% (up from 52%)
• Fewer young people feel that a break-up equals failure - 52% (down from 65%)
• In 2022, 22% thought it was possible for a break-up to be good; this has now increased to 40%
• More young people recognise that revenge-seeking and the temptation to do hurtful things in a break-up should not be accepted or normalised - 85% (up from 77%).

A website to support Own the Feels was launched on 31 July 2024:

Here is more information about the overall Love Better campaign approach:

If you have any questions or comments about Love Better, please email: