A Humorous Approach to a Serious Issue ADVERTISING about delicate health issues is usually straightforward and often sober. But it occasionally takes a humorous approach, as it did in a campaign last year for the Prostate Cancer Foundation by Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal & Partners, New York, part of MDC Partners. A commercial introduces "The Prostate Czech," a stocky Eastern European man wearing a tracksuit and a latex glove who offers exams to random men - and gets no takers. Now humor is being used on an even more unlikely topic: suicide prevention. A campaign based in Colorado aimed at men ages 25 to 64 introduces a fictional therapist, Dr. Rich Mahogany, an affable, mustachioed, middle-aged man whose personality might be described as Dr. Phil meets Ron Burgundy, Will Ferrell's fictional anchorman. In a public service announcement and in videos featured on a new Web site, ManTherapy.org, Dr. Mahogany, played by John Arp, is featured in his office, which is filled with items like a mounted moose head, ax and baseball trophies. "Men have a way of doing things," he begins in the spot. "A man has his way of eating" - he's shown eating a sandwich made from an entire loaf of Italian bread. "Of exercising" - he does bicep curls with a bowling ball. "Of keeping his hands warm" - he thrusts his hands down the front of his khakis. "And of straightening out" - he uses a leaf blower to clear his desk of stacks of paper. "So when a man faces a serious life problem, like divorce, depression or suicidal thoughts, shouldn't a man have a way to deal with that, too?" he continues. Well, now he does. I'm Dr. Rich Mahogany. Visit me at ManTherapy.org. The spot, by Cactus in Denver, will be shown statewide on July 17. Partners in the effort are the Colorado Office of Suicide Prevention and the Carson J. Spencer Foundation, a suicide-prevention organization, with financing from the Anschutz Family Foundation. In addition to billboards, the campaign also is using restroom posters and drink coasters promoting ManTherapy.org to try to reach men drowning their sorrows in bars. "The stigma around mental health for men is even greater than it is for the general population," said Joseph Conrad, the chief executive of Cactus. We thought humor would really crack that stigma and draw men in. Jarrod T. Hindman, director of the Colorado Office of Suicide Prevention, said funny ads for products like erectile dysfunction drugs demonstrated that humor suited difficult topics. "Sexual dysfunction is an affront to men's manhood, and I think mental illness and having depression also are seen as a sign of weakness that conflicts with being manly in the social ecology," said Mr. Hindman. Jeffrey Boal, the founder of the Plowshare Group, which develops distribution strategies for public service announcements, reviewed the campaign and said its humor would serve it well when it comes to getting airtime donated. "There's no question it will get played by P.S.A. directors," he said. Humor is a great tool in the P.S.A. space primarily because it's used so sparingly, since we tend to cover serious topics. As for whether the approach will actually be effective for men who are struggling, Mr. Boal said the tone might be problematic. "It's not like dental hygiene or foot fungus - it's something highly personal and very sensitive," Mr. Boal said of suicide risks. This is a very risky campaign, and that's part of its beauty, but I'd really want to make sure I knew how it impacted the target population. The initial concept for the campaign drew some skepticism from both suicide survivors and mental health professionals who have played an advisory role in the effort, Mr. Hindman said, but they all are "fully on board" now. "Some thought we would be making fun of therapy, but there are therapists out there that use humor, and Rich Mahogany is a guy you could have a beer with and who could also steer you in the right direction," he said. Colorado is tied with New Mexico in having the sixth-highest suicide rate in the country, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. High suicide rates tend to correlate with states that are both sparsely populated and have high rates of gun ownership, according to data from the Harvard School of Public Health. Montana tops the list, followed by Alaska and Wisconsin. Even though three times as many women than men attempt suicide, the rate for suicide attempts resulting in a fatality is almost four times higher for men, or 79 percent to 21 percent. That disparity may stem from men's higher rate of gun ownership, with suicides attempted with firearms having the highest fatality rate (85 percent), followed by hanging and other types of suffocation (69 percent) and jumping (31 percent), according to the Harvard data. Responding to the rising number of suicides among active duty soldiers - a number that as of June 1 outpaced the number of troops killed in Afghanistan this year - the Pentagon recently established a Defense Suicide Prevention Office. On ManTherapy.org, Dr. Mahogany is a constant presence, greeting visitors seated in a leather chair when they first open the site and delivering various messages when prompted. Clicking a prominent red rotary phone reveals the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. A questionnaire on the site gauges respondents" mental state, with Dr. Mahogany in one of three videos declaring the results good, about average, or troublesome. "Your results have me worried," he says gravely in the video for the most troubling results, the only time he steps out of character. And needless to say, if a pretend doctor like me is concerned about you, you probably should get some help.