Sick Kids Hospital and JWT Canada launched Better Tomorrows in November 2014, running 45 consecutive daily spots to set a one-month Canadian fundraising record.
ARCHIVESick Kids Hospital Rewrites Healthcare Advertising With 45 Daily Stories
Better Tomorrows is a 2014 healthcare advertising campaign created by JWT Canada for the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), Toronto, Ontario, in which 45 individual film spots aired on consecutive days to present real patient and staff stories from inside the hospital, raising a record-breaking C$37 million in donations across Canada during December 2014.
The campaign launched on November 10, 2014, running through December 21 of that year. As described by industry sources including adsoftheworld.com and Little Black Book, the project structured each execution as a mini-documentary, profiling a different child or staff member — ranging from four days old to eighteen years of age — against conditions including cystic fibrosis, childhood cancers, and organ transplants. Fifty total spots were produced across television, cinema, and online platforms, with 42 commercials airing on broadcast television and additional films placed in 21 Cineplex theatres across Canada, according to sickkidsfoundation.com. The campaign tagline, as documented by adsoftheworld.com, was Make their tomorrow as good as your today.
JWT positioned the initiative as SickKids Foundation's most ambitious brand campaign to that point. The objective was institutional and reputation-building in nature: to communicate the breadth of daily life inside a major Canadian children's hospital through narrative rather than traditional charity appeals. The geographic reach was primarily Ontario and the wider Canadian market, with online video extending exposure globally. Clapboard's editorial assessment places the campaign at a score of 69 out of 100, reflecting strong conceptual ambition and verified award performance tempered by the inherent production complexity of sustaining a 45-part narrative arc across a 45-day window.
ARCHIVEJWT Canada identified a structural gap in Canadian healthcare advertising. Traditional fundraising campaigns relied on a single emotional story or a montage appeal — a format that, by 2014, had become a well-worn convention across the sector. The insight at the core of Better Tomorrows was that no single story could represent the true scope of what SickKids does, and that donors, if shown the daily reality of the hospital, would respond at a level that conventional campaigns could not reach.
Brent Choi, Chief Creative and Integration Officer at JWT Canada, stated in remarks published by SickKids Foundation on November 10, 2014: "A traditional campaign couldn't convey the breadth and depth of what happens at the hospital every day. We could have done 145 spots." That observation defined the strategic architecture: volume and consistency of storytelling as a substitute for the single hero narrative. The result was a calendar-based media model, in which each day's new spot created a reason to return, building cumulative emotional investment across the Canadian market over more than six weeks.
In Canada, charitable giving to healthcare institutions represents a significant portion of the national philanthropic landscape, and hospital foundations operate in a competitive environment for donor attention. SickKids Foundation competes directly with peer institutions including the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Foundation and the BC Children's Hospital Foundation, both of which deploy annual holiday fundraising campaigns. JWT's approach differentiated Better Tomorrows by shifting the frame from urgency-based asks to an ongoing, episodic portrait of the hospital's work. The 360-degree integration across television, cinema, and digital platforms, as documented by selfstorming.com and adsoftheworld.com, ensured the campaign maintained visibility across every major media touchpoint available in the Canadian market at that time.
JWT Canada produced fifty individual films for Better Tomorrows. Each spot functioned as a self-contained mini-documentary, a format confirmed by Strategy Online in its December 5, 2014 coverage, which described each execution as profiling a distinct moment in a child's experience at the hospital. The production scale required for a campaign of this structure — fifty separate films, each featuring different subjects, cleared for broadcast and cinema release within a compressed pre-holiday window — was, by any measure, an exceptional undertaking for a Canadian healthcare advertising brief.
Brent Choi, Chief Creative and Integration Officer at JWT Canada, served as the senior creative lead on the campaign, with his quoted perspective published directly by SickKids Foundation documenting his authorship of the strategic and creative direction. Cindy Habana, Art Director at JWT Canada, identified the campaign as the work she is most proud of, stating in remarks documented by selfstorming.com and glossyinc.com that the team produced a 360-degree, fully integrated television, print, and online campaign consisting of 45 different commercials. Her account confirms the collaborative production structure that underpinned the project.
The visual and editorial approach was governed by restraint. Each film prioritised the specificity of the individual story — the child's name, condition, and moment — over generalised emotional cues. Placement in 21 Cineplex theatres across Canada, as reported by sickkidsfoundation.com, extended the cinematic quality of individual executions beyond the television medium, giving the work a scale of presence in the Canadian market that reinforced the institutional ambition of the campaign. The integration of print and online executions alongside the film work, as documented by adsoftheworld.com, ensured that the narrative architecture carried coherently across every format. Production credits beyond Choi and Habana are not fully catalogued in publicly available sources.
Better Tomorrows produced a directly measurable fundraising outcome. SickKids Foundation raised C$37 million in December 2014 alone, a one-month record that was 23% higher than the previous record, according to sources including lbbonline.com and Awards Strategyonline Ca. That figure represents the clearest evidence of campaign effectiveness: donor behaviour changed at a scale and speed that exceeded historical precedent in the Canadian market.
The campaign's award record across the 2015 and 2015/2016 cycles is extensive and independently verified. According to lbbonline.com and adsoftheworld.com, Better Tomorrows won a Silver Lion at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in 2015. The D&AD White Pencil, awarded in 2015 and documented by lbbonline.com, recognised the campaign's social value. Additional recognition included a Merit award at the One Show in 2015, a Grand Prix at the AToMiC Awards, Silver at the Cassies, and Campaign of the Year at the Strategy Awards in the 2015/2016 award cycle, all as reported by awards.strategyonline.ca and lbbonline.com. The campaign also received Campaign of the Year recognition at the AACE and further awards at the Clios, LIA, Marketing Awards, Bessies, and CMA, according to lbbonline.com. Clapboard's Clapboard Score for Better Tomorrows is 69 out of 100, reflecting the campaign's strong verified performance and creative ambition within a complex multi-execution production model.
Better Tomorrows was a 2014 healthcare advertising campaign by JWT Canada for SickKids Foundation in Toronto. It ran 45 film spots on consecutive days, each profiling a real patient or staff member. The campaign launched November 10, 2014, across television, cinema, and online platforms in Canada.
JWT Canada produced 50 total spots for Better Tomorrows. Forty-two aired on broadcast television daily from November 10 through December 21, 2014, with additional films placed in Cineplex theatres and online. Industry sources, including adsoftheworld.com, commonly reference the campaign as 45 spots over 45 consecutive days.
SickKids Foundation raised C$37 million in December 2014, a single-month donation record. That figure was 23% higher than the previous record, according to lbbonline.com and awards.Strategyonline Ca. The result directly followed the Better Tomorrows campaign running across Canada throughout November and December of that year.
Better Tomorrows won a Silver Lion at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in 2015, according to lbbonline.com. The campaign also received a D&AD White Pencil, a One Show Merit, Grand Prix at the AToMiC Awards, and Campaign of the Year at the Strategy Awards in the 2015/2016 cycle.
Brent Choi, Chief Creative and Integration Officer at JWT Canada, led the campaign's creative direction. His involvement is documented by SickKids Foundation in November 2014 remarks. Cindy Habana, Art Director at JWT Canada, identified Better Tomorrows as her proudest professional work, as recorded by selfstorming.com and glossyinc.com.
Better Tomorrows replaced the single-story charity appeal with 45 consecutive daily mini-documentaries, each profiling a different SickKids patient or staff member. JWT Canada's approach, documented by Strategy Online in December 2014, used volume and continuity of storytelling to build cumulative donor engagement across the Canadian market over six weeks.
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