In the fall of 2014, Toronto’s SickKids Foundation launched “Better Tomorrows,” the most ambitious fundraising campaign in the hospital’s history. It certainly earned immediate attention for its raw, poignant portrayal of kids’ daily struggles with treatment and illness, but it marked the beginning of a period of bold, attention-getting marketing that proved very effective.
“Better Tomorrows,” from then-agency of record, J. Walter Thompson, featured 45 TV spots, each centred on an actual SickKids patient and their family. A new one aired every day for nearly two months while the campaign also activated via social media and “real-time” newspaper ads, which let readers know, for example, that at 10 a.m. on one November morning, Danielle would be undergoing her eighth round of chemotherapy. SickKids refused to let Canadians look away, and that resolve paid off big-time.
“As an advertising agency, our work drives change for clients,” said Ryan Spelliscy, senior vice-president and executive creative director at JWT. “But sometimes our clients change us. SickKids was that type of client. “The work done for this campaign is something the entire J. Walter Thompson network is very proud of. Creating 45 unique spots is a huge undertaking both physically and emotionally, but working with SickKids and the individual patients and families was truly inspiring. They let us into some emotional moments, and we are very grateful for their trust.”
“Better Tomorrows” launched with a goal to raise $31.6 million in donations, but surpassed that by 17% when the foundation received $37 million in December — the largest amount it had ever raised in a single month. The work earned a slew of awards including a Silver Lion at Cannes and a silver and bronze at the 2015 Marketing Awards. The videos racked up more than 562,000 views, 125% over objective. A dedicated website received 1.3 million page views, and the SickKids Facebook page gained 8,000 new followers, a 7% lift.
The hospital followed up on the campaign this year when it revisited six of those patients to reveal how their stories had progressed. The effort from Cossette (the hospital’s new agency of record) included a new two-minute TV ad and, working off the insight that moms (SickKids’ largest potential donor base) were highly active on Facebook, leveraged the site by posting photos of the six patients, and invited users to hit un-pause on their stories by making a donation.
The Hospital’s grit and dogged determination was also evident in “SickKids Barry Blitz,” an intensive, three-week campaign that launched in late 2014.
More than 1,000 kids from Barrie, Ont. (a city approximately one hour north of Toronto) are treated at SickKids each year, so creative from Cossette told the stories of five “missing” Barrie children who, instead of playing hockey or attending school, were undergoing treatment at the hospital. These ads dominated transit shelters while brand ambassadors knocked on door across the city and intercepted parents in local shopping centres with postcards depicting the missing children.
During the campaign’s three-week run, SickKids doubled its year-over-year acquisition rate from door-to-door visits and exceeded its monthly donor goal for the city by 24%, making Barrie second only to Toronto in terms of the most donations raised.
