Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, a Toronto hospital, has chosen Dentsu Canada as its agency of record for both creative and media planning. The account win follows a thorough agency review, facilitated by AgencyLink, of over a dozen agencies.
‘Our particular interest was in storytelling, and I can’t think of a better example in recent memory than the work they did for Lexus, particularly their ‘Moments’ campaign,’ says Sunnybrook chief marketing officer Pamela Ross. ‘People need to be able to identify with what the hospital does for people,’ Dentsu Canada president and CEO Bob Shropshire tells MiC, ‘and the best way that you can communicate that is through stories in and around the things they do for people on a regular basis.’
Ross says Dentsu’s strengths in social marketing and media buying and planning also played a role in the agency winning the account: ‘They’re not the biggest, but they’re pretty smart about it, very strategic.’
Dentsu’s first work for the hospital will be two fall campaigns, which will include Sunnybrook’s first-ever brand campaign and the public phase of its $470-million fundraising effort. Details of the campaigns have yet to be finalized, but Ross says they will include communications at the hospital. ‘We have over a million patient visits every year, plus all the people who come with those patients. So there’s an extraordinarily high level of traffic that we are going to use for building our brand.’
