SickKids Touching Holiday Campaign Celebrates the Brave

The holidays are upon us, and at this time of year most kids are worried about being on the 'naughty' or 'nice' list. But at SickKids, there is no naughty or nice — there’s only the brave. 

Introducing 'The Brave List', a new campaign dedicated to courageous SickKids patients, both past and present.

Created by Cossette, the campaign recognises the incredible bravery of SickKids patients and encourages the public to donate to the SickKids Get Better Gifts (GBG) program. And until December 31st, The Brave List, featuring the names of over 400 SickKids patients, will be projected onto the large chimney of The Boiler House in Toronto’s Distillery District during Winter Village. 

“There’s a lot of pent up excitement and generosity around the holidays this year. So we thought, why not leverage that to get people to think about the kids who have to spend their time in the hospital?” says Jaimes Zentil, executive creative director at Cossette. “The 'naughty and nice' list is something most people know about already. It gave us a good base to build our creative ideas off of, and plants the seed for different iterations in the future.” 

“During the holiday season, there are 250 patients each night who need to stay in hospital, who then miss out on holiday festivities and celebrations with their families and friends. We saw an opportunity to disrupt the traditional and familiar sentiment of the naughty and nice list to instead pay tribute to the resilience and courage of our patients, and to shine a light on their bravery,” says Roy Gruia, director, brand strategy & communications, SickKids Foundation. 

“The holiday season lends itself to more magical and whimsical creative storytelling and our hope with this campaign is to inspire and remind the community of the serious life experiences our patients and their families are going through – regardless of the season – in a brand story that is both bold and light hearted. In addition to the hero film designed to inspire, we have created a fully integrated campaign to build awareness and drive conversion – ultimately encouraging our community to support patients through our Get Better Gifts program,” says Vanessa Teall, director, product marketing, Lottery & Gaming, SickKids Foundation.