The Hospital for Sick Children, in Toronto, Canada, is a world leader in children’s healthcare. But like most charities, it can be overlooked during the hectic holiday season. We had to find a way to get people to take time out of their busy, stressful, tiring day to take notice and make a donation.

How?

By giving them a massive dose of perspective by showing what a sick child is going through that very same day.

For nearly two months we ran a new commercial every day to remind people what was happening in the hospital right that minute - each featuring a new patient.

So as viewers watched TV on November 10, for example, they learned how Taylum, a 2-year-old boy, was in need of a kidney transplant. Or as they watched on December 4, they learned how 12-year-old Wahaab was literally in the middle of a 9-hour surgery to remove cancer from his colon.

The campaign also continued outside of TV. We ran timely print ads in local and national newspapers, we developed a website to house all of our daily videos and to give updates when they happened, and we even ran ads in cinema before movies.

Each video within the campaign was paired with Coldplay’s, “Fix You”, a song graciously donated by the band.

In terms of results, the campaign helped the hospital achieve the most social media engagement they had ever seen – 88 million impressions. But the real success came by way of donations. In December 2014, the hospital received the highest amount in donations for one month in the hospital’s 42-year history, $37 million, exceeding the previous year by $8 million.

Other numbers:

- 13% increase in propensity to donate.

- 562, 461 video views: a 125% increase from the previous year

- 7% raise in Facebook engagement with 8000 new followers and 58,000 total shares

- 1.3 million page views: a 160% increase from the previous year