The Hospital for Sick Children (known as SickKids) was turning 150 years old, and needed a new campaign to help achieve its aggressive fundraising goals (including $1.6M in one-time donations) for this milestone anniversary. And while SickKids was excited to celebrate its 150-year anniversary, it would be doing so in a climate of pessimism and reluctance to donate. A majority of Canadians are feeling overwhelmed, stressed and pessimistic. With heaviness and stress at every turn, people begin to feel desensitized to the causes that need their help. Charitable donations in Canada are in decline, hitting a 20-year low. We needed a campaign to counteract all of that. Something that would reinvigorate the love for a 150-year-old hospital, and encourage donations during a time when people are being tighter with their wallets than ever. SickKids has made incredible achievements throughout its long history, and strategically, it would have been simple to direct the creative towards driving awareness of those amazing life-saving breakthroughs. But we knew that the task at hand required more than a history lesson. We needed a creative strategy that would break through the donor fatigue and apathy, and compel the audience to get involved with the campaign and donate to SickKids. As a result, our strategy was to remain adamantly focused on the future. Yes, the future of SickKids hospital. But more importantly, the future of every single child patient who walks through the doors. We realized that at its core, a 150-year anniversary celebration was really about birthdays. And that led us to our insight: every child deserves to get to their next birthday. Birthdays are a time for celebration and festivities. But while we all have a birthday, not everyone gets to celebrate their next one. Some of us have far too few. The real birthday we had to talk about wasn’t SickKids’, it was the birthday every single patient is already fighting for: their next one.