SickKids Foundation Launches New “House of Legends” Campaign

The patients, doctors, nurses, researchers, and all the other healthcare workers at SickKids are legendary—and SickKids is built on these legendary stories. Continuing to leverage the powerful VS brand platform that began with SickKids VS: Undeniable, this new campaign is the culmination of what was started back in October 2016 with the aim of rallying the community to donate to help build a new hospital. 

This year’s marketing campaign will be the last time that the Foundation will be publicly raising money for the new building, as they anticipate reaching their goal by March of 2023.  

The House of Legends campaign celebrates the legendary work of the hospital, its rich history, and the legendary status of the staff, patients and their families. SickKids brought back patients from the first VS film in Year 1, including Cole smashing the dialysis machine and Malachi roaring with the tiger, as well as showcasing personal photos and home movies of other patients featured over the years, many of whom have passed away, including the late Marlow, who laid down the very first brick in the SickKids VS: All In campaign.

Created in partnership with Cossette, the campaign concept honours SickKids legends by highlighting the past, present and future. The House of Legends film is like a title sequence, moving through statuesque moments in the hospital’s history. Alongside the footage beautifully captured and produced by Mark Zibert, we combined real archival footage, newspaper headlines and patient photography to bring out the true emotion, intensity and fearlessness behind each scene. Finally, at the end, we pan out and realize that all these moments in history are just a small part of a much larger story. 

The film is the bookend to the SickKids VS: Undeniable campaign, which garnered worldwide awareness through awards, media attention, social buzz, and surpassed all fundraising and engagement goals. The House of Legends film goes back to the vision that Elizabeth McMaster and a group of young nurses had for the original hospital, founded in 1875, and now, what that vision looks like today, and what’s to come. But this campaign is by no means a finish line for SickKids. The institution relies heavily on donations to operate, and although the current fundraising campaign has been incredibly successful, the need for donations continues to grow. SickKids will keep on fighting the fight, as it’s always done, for every child. 

Through social and digital executions, SickKids is telling the legendary stories of these patients, doctors, nurses, and researchers to encourage Canadians to become recurring monthly donors. This year’s goal is to acquire 10,000 new monthly donors and all donations made before December 31, 2022, will be triple-matched for an entire year. It’s time to build a new home worthy of these stories and all the ones yet to come.