ARCHIVENorthwell Health Uses Broken Statues to Reframe Women's Healthcare
Northwell Health's 'Master Pieces' is a 2025 healthcare campaign that uses iconic incomplete female statues — including the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace — as visual metaphors for the systemic gaps in women's medical research and care across the United States.
The campaign launched on March 8, 2025, timed to International Women's Day and Women's History Month, and is scheduled to run through June 2025, according to reporting by MediaPost. It extends Northwell Health's 'Raise Health' platform, which the health system first introduced in 2021 as a sustained movement addressing healthcare inequity as a structural, institutional problem rather than an individual failing. Media channels include broadcast television, digital video, social media, out-of-home placements, and radio, giving 'Master Pieces' a broad footprint across the United States market.
Ramon Soto, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Northwell Health, framed the campaign's intent directly. 'With 'Master Pieces,' we use powerful storytelling to expose gaps in care and demonstrate how Northwell leads the way in transforming women's health care,' Soto stated. He further described it as an extension of the 'Raise Health' movement and 'a bold call to action for better health for all women'. The campaign spotlights the work of Northwell's Katz Institute for Women's Health, positioning the institution as an active participant in closing the very gaps the creative depicts. Produced in Cape Town, South Africa, the campaign was created by StrawberryFrog, with RSA Films and Patriot Films handling production and The Refinery providing visual effects. Clapboard has assigned 'Master Pieces' a score of 69 out of 100.
Northwell Health operates in one of the most competitive hospital markets in the United States. In its New York-area market, Northwell holds a 31.5% market share as of 2024, up from 27.4% in 2010, according to Fitch Ratings — more than twice the share held individually by NewYork-Presbyterian at 12.1% and Mount Sinai Health System at 10.7%, per the same source. That dominant position gives the health system both the platform and the institutional weight to lead cultural conversations, not merely respond to them.
The strategic rationale behind 'Master Pieces' draws on a well-documented inequity: women have historically been underrepresented in medical research, leading to diagnostic and treatment gaps that the campaign frames as analogous to missing pieces in otherwise celebrated works of art. StrawberryFrog, which has served as Northwell Health's agency of record since 2019 according to reporting by LBB Online, grounded the campaign in this insight rather than in product messaging. Nick Sonderup, Chief Creative Officer at StrawberryFrog, explained the challenge: 'To bring the revolutionary work Northwell is doing in women's health to life creatively, we had to find a way to tell that story in a big way.' The preceding campaign from this partnership, 'Breaking the Mold' in 2021, addressed male-body bias in medical research and treatment, per MediaPost, establishing a lineage of advocacy-led health narrative that 'Master Pieces' continues in 2025. Across the U.S. market, outpatient services now represent a growing share of hospital facility revenue, with the sector forecast to expand at a meaningful pace through 2031, according to Research and Markets — context that underscores why health systems are investing in brand narratives that build long-term trust with women as primary healthcare decision-makers.
The creative at the centre of 'Master Pieces' is an extended visual metaphor. Northwell Health and StrawberryFrog selected three canonical works of Western sculpture — the Venus de Milo, the Three Graces, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace — each already incomplete or damaged by time, and reframed those absences as deliberate symbols of what women's healthcare has historically lacked. The choice is precise: these are not obscure works but globally recognised images of feminine form, which makes the analogy legible to a broad United States audience without requiring explanation.
Production of the campaign involved both 3D printing and CGI, according to MediaPost, with The Refinery executing the visual effects work required to render the sculptures with the specificity the concept demands. RSA Films and Patriot Films handled the film production, shot on location in Cape Town, South Africa. The combination of practical fabrication and digital post-production allowed the creative team to control exactly how each sculpture's missing elements were depicted — ensuring the visual gaps read as intentional statements rather than incidental damage.
Nick Sonderup of StrawberryFrog, as Chief Creative Officer, shaped the narrative approach that connects historical art to contemporary healthcare inequity without reducing either subject. The campaign's tone avoids the emotional overstatement common in healthcare advertising, instead sustaining a tension between beauty and absence that keeps the core argument visible throughout. The 'Raise Health' platform name itself appears as both a call to action and a structural frame — raise the standard, raise awareness, raise health outcomes — giving the campaign language that extends naturally across broadcast, digital, social, and out-of-home executions in the United States market.
ARCHIVENo verified performance data for 'Master Pieces' is publicly available at this stage of the campaign's run. Given its scheduled duration through June 2025 and its multi-channel deployment across broadcast television, digital video, social media, out-of-home, and radio in the United States, quantitative results have not yet entered the public record.
Structural analysis, however, points to several factors that position the campaign for meaningful resonance. The metaphor is singular and self-contained — a viewer encountering 'Master Pieces' across any channel receives a coherent message without needing prior context. That legibility across formats is a material creative asset for a campaign running simultaneously on television and out-of-home placements. The March 8 launch date, anchored to International Women's Day, gave the campaign immediate cultural relevance and an earned media window that purely scheduled advertising cannot manufacture. MediaPost provided trade coverage on March 16, 2025, describing the work as a creative solution to women's health disparities — indicating the campaign generated professional industry attention within days of launch.
The 'Raise Health' platform's continuity since 2021, with StrawberryFrog as Northwell's agency of record since 2019 per LBB Online, means 'Master Pieces' benefits from accumulated brand equity rather than building from zero. The Katz Institute for Women's Health functions as a concrete institutional anchor, grounding an emotionally driven narrative in a specific clinical resource. Clapboard rates the campaign 69 out of 100, reflecting strong conceptual clarity and production craft with room for deeper measurable connection between creative and conversion.
'Master Pieces' is a 2025 Northwell Health campaign that uses incomplete classical female sculptures to represent gaps in women's healthcare. Launched on March 8, 2025, it extends the 'Raise Health' platform and spotlights the Katz Institute for Women's Health, running across broadcast, digital, social, out-of-home, and radio in the United States.
StrawberryFrog created 'Master Pieces' for Northwell Health. RSA Films and Patriot Films handled production, and The Refinery provided visual effects. StrawberryFrog has served as Northwell Health's agency of record since 2019, according to LBB Online, with the campaign shot in Cape Town, South Africa.
Northwell Health launched the 'Raise Health' platform in 2021 to address healthcare inequity as a structural problem. 'Master Pieces' is its latest campaign under that platform, focusing specifically on women's health. The preceding 'Breaking the Mold' campaign in 2021 addressed male-body bias in medical research, per MediaPost.
The campaign features the Venus de Milo, the Three Graces, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Each sculpture is already missing elements, making them precise visual metaphors for gaps in women's medical research and care. Production involved 3D printing and CGI, according to MediaPost, with The Refinery executing visual effects.
The Katz Institute for Women's Health is Northwell's dedicated women's health division and the institutional anchor of 'Master Pieces.' The campaign positions the Katz Institute as a direct response to the research and care gaps the creative depicts, grounding its advocacy narrative in a specific clinical resource available in the United States.
'Master Pieces' launched March 8, 2025, timed to International Women's Day and Women's History Month, and was scheduled to run through June 2025, according to MediaPost. It aired across broadcast television, digital video, social media, out-of-home, and radio channels throughout the United States market.
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