Children’s Hospital Colorado is the premier authority for children’s health in the Western United States, consistently ranked in the Top 10 best pediatric hospitals in the country.

Yet, moms in Denver assume hospitals are fundamentally the same and any doctor treating their child can be trusted because they must have pediatric expertise. This assumption is reinforced by the complexity of the healthcare system, competitive adult hospitals looking to capitalize on pediatric growth and an overwhelming lack of credible information.

Entering our second year of the “Here, it’s Different” campaign, our goal was to shift from basic awareness of the hospital and the difference in experience of visiting a children’s hospital (year one) to drive intent by connecting to moms on an emotional and logical level proving that Children’s is the only hospital in the region with the credentials and expertise to care for their child.

Parents are creating online videos that capture every day of their child’s first year of life and end on a ‘normal’ milestone, like the first birthday. But when your child has a serious health condition, no milestone can be taken for granted.

IDEA: Re-create the ‘lost’ year of a child’s triumphant medical journey using only family footage.

Culling through 13,000 pieces of patient family footage (including one grandma’s iPhone), we re-created three Journey Year videos. These stories turned seemingly mundane milestones into the truly extraordinary achievements they’ve become.

We call these “miracle” milestones. These milestones reveal themselves at different times and can look suspiciously ordinary. It’s not until you understand the full journey that you feel their impact.

We set out to prove that being different meant being better -- convincing mom that only Children’s has the innovative care her child needs when facing a health challenge.

We chose to demonstrate CHCO’s expertise through high acuity patient stories: Heart Transplant, Spinal Surgery, and Osteosarcoma – conditions that illustrated the innovations and care that CHCO provided. Our campaign had to prove we are pediatric experts that treat the most challenging conditions — with a multidisciplinary approach unrivaled by other hospitals.

There was a challenge, however, in presenting the hospital’s offering via the toughest conditions: we risked a common misperception that a Children’s hospital is great “for the big stuff – like cancer – but it’s not for my child who just has [asthma, a broken arm, etc…]” We needed to find a way tell the stories in a way that was relevant and accessible to moms with healthy kids.

Specific tactics and channels that built on the story from our film include digital radio spots on Pandora and Spotify, paid social, paid search, OOH, and a display campaign.

Told through an integrated 360 campaign, our work focuses on the ‘journey of care’ that leads to a child’s “miracle” milestone, built through a collection of hundreds of moments -- some big, some small -- over sleepless nights, through innovations and hard work, with a special doctor or nurse, through giggles, tears, and triumphs.

Five months after the work launched, unaided awareness hit a record high of 83% up from an all-time low of 63% in 2016 (as measured through a third-party brand tracking survey). Intent to visit also reached highs of up to 74%

In Q3 of 2018, differentiation was at an all-time high, with 70% of respondents demonstrating knowledge of the difference between the two hospitals – up from 54% in Q4 2017. Going beyond awareness to understand why different matters, a 16% increase in the number of respondents who agree “the closest hospital is not always best for my child” further underscores that our message of pediatric expertise resonates with our target audience.

Key Results:

- 2X increased intent to visit

- 3x website visits

- 83% unaided brand awareness