A new ad for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is literally reaching for new heights, part of the hospital’s largest fundraising campaign and new platform.
“No One Left Behind” conveys how family, patients, community supports and advocates can lift one another up and clamber to deliver a beacon of hope, visualized by creating a human lighthouse tower, as described by Sarah Chamberlin, CAMH Foundation’s CMO and VP of community giving and engagement.
“We thought about what does it mean to be part of CAMH for those who are here, and for those who need to be here,” Chamberlin says, adding that the campaign is about adding more people to the lighthouse, to ensure nobody is left behind.
Developed in partnership with Toronto agency Camp Jefferson, the campaign is the centerpiece of a $500 million fundraising effort, making it the world’s largest fundraising campaign for hospital-based mental health research.
The funding will go in part toward building the new CAMH Research & Discovery Centre and comes on the heels of heightened need for healthcare services, especially with increased anxiety and depression brought on from COVID.
“We believe now is the time to go further than ever to support those facing mental illness,” Chamberlin says.
The hope is that all of CAMH will be consolidated on the Queen West campus in Toronto, providing all of the necessary elements so collaboration and co-creation can happen and researchers can better learn from patient experience, Chamberlin says.
Chamberlin says it went for a mid-February launch, as it did not want to compete with Bell’s Let’s Talk, but it is still a time of year when people are thinking about mental health, with things like Brain Health Awareness Month coming in March.
The integrated “No One Left Behind” campaign will run in Ontario until May 31, 2023 and includes TV, social, out-of-home and radio.
“We have a fairly broad mix in our media buy,” Camberlin says, which includes some newer avenues for CAMH, such as search. Jungle Media is supporting on the media buy, with Alter Ego and Outsider Editorial on production.
According to Chamberlin, CAMH is unique in that is both a hospital and a cause unto itself, as it exemplifies mental health care for many people in its target audience. People are generous in their contributions as a result. “We do benefit from the generosity of major gifts donors, but we have a very strong monthly donor which is growing.”
CAMH is Canada’s largest mental health teaching hospital. More than half of Canadians will have dealt with some form of mental illness by the age of 40, and roughly 11 people per day – totaling more than 4,000 people per year – lose heir life to suicide.
