SickKids VS: the original Undeniable launch

Read the campaign story

SickKids VS launches with the energy of a competitive anthem rather than a quiet appeal for sympathy. Patients, families and staff are presented through images of strength and confrontation, while the repeated VS construction names the challenges facing the hospital. The original Undeniable film asks potential supporters to see a capable institution and a determined community, not only vulnerable people in need of help.

SickKids’ October 2016 launch account explains the intention to reach new audiences and broaden philanthropic support. It credits Cossette and describes a coordinated campaign across television, print, digital, outdoor and cinema. Contemporary Marketing Magazine coverage records the anthem’s television debut during the Toronto Maple Leafs home opener and credits director Mark Zibert of Skin and Bones. This case concerns that 2016 brand-platform launch. It does not assign the later VS Limits capital campaign’s fundraising totals to the original film.

The mechanism, in this reading, is a change in the donor’s imagined role. A conventional appeal can position the viewer as someone responding to suffering from outside. A confrontation frame invites the viewer to join an existing effort. The short VS structure can connect different obstacles while preserving one recognisable identity. That flexibility is useful only if each named obstacle is accurate and the implied contribution is something the organisation can actually deliver.

The framing also has a documented cost. In an official response later that October, SickKids acknowledged that some patients and families did not find the battle metaphor empowering. It clarified that the institution was fighting for every child, rather than expecting every child to behave like a fighter. That distinction is central to the case. Illness is not a character test, and a person’s outcome cannot be explained by how courageously they perform determination for others.

A responsible small-team adaptation would let the people represented help choose the language before donors see it. It could name a concrete obstacle, such as inaccessible equipment or a service gap, and show the specific support a contribution makes possible. Participation should be voluntary, with meaningful review of personal stories and privacy. This is a proposed method, not a claim about the original research process. The opened sources establish the campaign and mixed reactions, but not an independently isolated donation lift. The lesson is to test a new emotional role with both supporters and affected communities, and to revise it when attention comes at the expense of dignity.

Change the donor role with care

Describe the useful action a supporter can join. Do not make the beneficiary responsible for performing optimism to earn support.

Test with people represented first

Invite affected people to evaluate tone, privacy and implications before assessing donor response. Provide a meaningful way to decline participation.

Name a concrete opponent

Focus on a service barrier or clearly defined need. Avoid language implying that illness outcomes reflect effort, virtue or willingness to fight.

A small test for another brief

Co-design a dignity-led appeal explaining one concrete service obstacle and the support needed to address it.

Accurate understanding of the need and contribution, alongside dignity, pressure and misinterpretation concerns from affected reviewers.

Stop if reviewers feel blamed, exposed or required to display bravery, or if the appeal implies a guaranteed health outcome.

• Ask affected adults and service staff to review the problem description and language.
• Build an original text-and-illustration appeal without identifiable patient stories.
• Test understanding with supporters, then return to the reviewers before any release.