The holidays are the most significant donation period for SickKids. Motivated by imagining what life is like for kids in hospital – away from friends, family and the magic of the season – Canadians have a higher propensity to give.

For four years, SickKids & celebrity friend Ryan Reynolds had successfully tapped into their audience’s holiday spirit with a series of festive videos focused on Ryan’s Ugly Holiday Sweater. By 2023, they knew many Canadians were having a harder time feeling the spirit, thanks to economic uncertainty, pandemic hangover, and bleak global news.

The challenge: find a new, compelling way for SickKids and Ryan Reynolds to motivate people, and encourage them to give what they could to kids who really need a boost.

The opportunity: leverage a relatable, humorous and charming insight.

The objectives: raise $400k for SickKids, and have some fun in the process.

The campaign film leveraged the insight that when kids are sick, they aren’t themselves and can’t get up to their usual mischievous antics. Enthusiastically flying up to Toronto to film in the hospital for the first time ever, Ryan brought his wit and charisma with him to deliver the message that kids deserve to be well enough to be little ‘pricks’ at the holidays, with a playful energy entertainingly different from typical in-hospital content.

The film featured real SickKids patients and hospital staff, and Ryan called upon fellow Canadian Michael Bublé and Toronto Maple Leafs star Auston Matthews, both of whom immediately joined in the fun. The film captured just how – with donors’ help – we can get kids back to all their lovable/terrible antics.

SickKids wanted to appeal to those age 25+ who could empathize with the challenge of being a family with a sick child in hospital during the holidays.

This was a social-first campaign, given the film’s cheeky tone and use of celebrities with huge social media influence – enabling them to reach new audiences worldwide. Interest-based targeting on paid media channels also amplified the reach of the campaign.

Knowing the power of Ryan's online following, the team chose to premiere the campaign on his organic social channels, and then followed up on Instagram via a collaboration with SickKids, Michael Bublé and Auston Matthews.

In addition to the organic launch, the campaign comprised of Meta/Snapchat ads, additional influencer content and activations at events like a Toronto Maple Leafs home game – to strategically ensure that as many eyeballs as possible saw the film and were then compelled to make a donation.

Celebrity power acted as the key media driver for the campaign, given that it leveraged the organic social reach of some significant Canadian icons. In addition, a modest spend was planned for paid campaign tactics, and Samsung Canada acted as title sponsor for the 5th year, matching all donations up to $100,000 and amplifying the campaign across their national network.

The campaign followed a similar timing pattern to previous years – launching on December 4, just when audiences were getting into the holiday mindset, and running right up until December 24. The campaign focused on both awareness and conversion advertising across Meta and Snapchat, both tried-and-tested platforms, with significant spend on retargeting video viewers with a donation ask.

Ultimately, the powerhouse combo of prominent names coming together to spread some laughs and inspire giving brought about outstanding results through all the planned channels.

Within 24 hours of posting, the film generated over 7.9M video views, and has since reached over 10.6M views on IG alone.

The campaign generated over 272 pieces of media coverage from a range of outlets, both Canadian and international, resulting in 209M global impressions. The film's celebrity power fueled greater earned pick-up from online influencers, including coverage from icons like Anne Murray and other famous friendlies.

In addition to raising awareness for SickKids, the campaign proved effective at generating donations: we raised $617,000 in only 4 weeks, against a target of $400k. Donations came from countries around the world, including Canada, the US, the UK, Germany and France. At a time when philanthropic giving is generally trending down, and with economic uncertainty affecting donor behaviour, these results were the perfect punchline to this particular joke.