The drama of a hospital show with a cool hip hop music underpinning. Bensimon Byrne’s first work for Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation is not the usual medical fund-raising campaign. And that begins with the idea. The campaign, be like mike, turns the hospital’s nickname, St Mike’s, into a call to action with a device that gives all the hospital’s practitioners the name, Mike. Also the name on the cheque that concludes the story. Mike is a mindset – compassionate, innovative, committed, relentless.

The music that attracts a crowd not usually drawn to fund drives is by real patient, Haviah Mighty. JUNO award-winnnig musician, Haviah Mighty, was 33 when she had life-saving heart surgery at St. Michael’s Hospital. Recovering in the ICU, she could hear her surgeon checking in on patient after patient. “I was in disbelief that he was just saving lives back-to-back-to-back,” she commented.
 
But it wasn’t just what the St. Mike’s team did that moved her. It was how they did it. Dr. Gianluigi Bisleri took an interest in her life – her music, her career, the world she had built and wanted to keep building. He was committed to helping her return to all of it.

That experience, and the mindset behind it, is at the heart of Bensimon Byrne’s be like mike. Mighty’s Trendsetter, with Connor Price, provides the soundtrack to the campaign’s hero film, directed by Oscoar-nominated filmmaker, Hubert Davis.

Be like mike turns the hospital’s familiar nickname into a call to action, capturing the compassionate, innovative and relentless mindset behind the hospital’s care, research and medical breakthroughs. Rather than centre the campaign on illness or crisis, the strategy celebrates the people who make that work possible.

The campaign arrives at a time when public trust in institutions is fragile, yet trust in frontline healthcare workers has never been stronger. New research commissioned by St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation found that 91% of Canadians rank frontline healthcare workers as the single most trusted voice acting in the public’s best interest, above government and business.
 
“We hear it again and again. There’s ‘something different’ about St. Mike’s,” stated Kevin Goldthorp, president and CEO of St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation. “It’s a belief among our staff and supporters that there is always more we can do, more we can discover, and more we can give to every patient. Be like mike gives us a shared language for that ethos, and a way to invite others into it. A way to express not only what we do, but who we are.”

“Healthcare advertising often starts in a place of crisis. We wanted to do something that felt different — bright, optimistic and full of life,” added Joseph Bonnici, chief creative officer, Bensimon Byrne. “The more time we spent with St. Mike’s, the more we realized the story was really about its people and the mindset they share. That became be like mike.”

The full campaign extends across film, out-of-home, digital and social, with be like mike appearing throughout Toronto and across the hospital itself. Bensimon Byrne partnered with TADIEM sister companies, OneMethod on design and Narrative XPR on public relations, for the integrated campaign.


Credits:
Client: St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation

Agency: Bensimon Byrne
Chief Creative Officer: Joseph Bonnici 
SVP, Strategy: Jennifer Bell
Executive Creative Director: Gints Bruveris
Creative Director: David Mueller
Writers: Nate Houseley & Sophia Wilby 
Director of Production: Michelle Pilling
Group Director, Delivery: Marli Bennett
Associate Business Lead: Erika Ymana
Senior Project Manager: Caity Abugov
Media Director: Sarah Lowden
Senior Media Planner: Jess Felipe

PR: NarrativeXPR 

Design: OneMethod

Production Company: Folktale Films
Director: Hubert Davis
Executive Producers: Tom Evelyn, Nicholas Taylor & Reuben Taylor
Line Producer: Adam Rodness
Director of Photography: Catherin Lutes

Photography: Instil Image
Photographer: Dave Todon
Line Producer: Francesca Marchese

Editing: Rooster Post
Editor: Michelle Czukar
Producer: Sam MacLaren

Online & Colour Transfer: Fort York
Producers: Armen Bunag & Katie Fowler
Colourist: Jason Zukowski

Audio: Berkeley Inc.
Creative Director: Jared Kuemper
Producer: Julia Vasiliev