CHEO Foundation is looking to expand its awareness beyond Ottawa, and generate support for its multi-million-dollar pediatric facilities overhaul.

A new TV spot, along with radio, out-of-home, digital and social media ads plays with a phrase most associated with an old man yelling at the clouds, “…kids these days.” It’s a sentence uttered in the spot by actual CHEO patients and staffers, emphasizing that in today’s world, kids’ health challenges are greater than previous generations could have possibly imagined.

“It’s about turning that phrase on its head,” says Anick Losier, CHEO’s chief branding and communications officer. Losier adds that as an organization, it is looking to appeal to corporate leaders and to the rest of Canada, and to convey what issues children are facing today.

The campaign is national but also linked to the Olympics, with TV buys in English and French. The campaign is large in scope, with both the Billy Bishop and Pearson Airports, as well as Amazon Prime, part of its outreach in Toronto. Losier says that’s because while CHEO is a beloved institution in Ottawa, insights reveal that outside the nation’s capital, people don’t know what it is or what it does – with a mere 6% level of awareness. CHEO hopes to change that, especially in advance of a big capital investment project.

“CHEO as a hospital, has really outgrown its capacity and we have an ambitious 10-year plan to develop the entire campus,” Losier says, telling strategy that the campaign is designed to raise $220 million and will have other elements coming to life later in the year as well.

That funding is earmarked for creating more mental health spaces to address the mental health crisis, and expanding and improving access to key areas of the hospital including emergency, medical imaging and pharmacy.

McMillan Vantage “led everything,” and handled the marketing end-to-end including creative, buy and PR after winning the remit last year.

Steve Read, CHEO Foundation president and CEO, explains that the campaign’s main target is high net worth individuals, roughly 50 to 60 years old.

“We spent a lot of time looking at how that group consumes information, digitally and otherwise,” Read says. The secondary target, he says, is a broader geography corporate audience.

He likens it to a ripple and a ring, also weaving in hybrid groups like family foundations and corporate foundations.

“We’ve been lucky, we turn 50 years old this year and we have a history of being able to count on a generous local community,” Read says, with stakeholders realizing the importance of CHEO to provision of children’s care. While there are ebb and flow challenges in the economy, he says it is confident in can connect with people over the importance of that issue, and funding pediatric research.

The campaign officially launches on August 5 and will run nationally for the next four months.