Despite Canada’s commitment to equal public healthcare for all, the truth is that access to healthcare and quality of care can vary significantly across communities. This is the challenge currently facing the district of Scarborough, which accounts for 25% of Toronto’s population yet receives less than 1% of the hospital donations.
Scarborough Health Network (SHN) is made up of three hospitals that serve one of the most diverse but underserved communities in the whole country. Their objective was to create a campaign that would create awareness of the massive disparity in healthcare support across the Greater Toronto Area, and to convince the rest of Toronto to support their Scarborough brethren.
If the past two years of COVID have taught us anything, it’s that sickness is without prejudice. Regardless of race, class, gender, or age, we’re all at risk of needing urgent medical care. But while each one of us are susceptible to getting sick, access to health care and quality of care can vary significantly.
Sadly, we aren’t all equal when it comes to health care. And this was the challenge facing Scarborough, which accounts for 25% of Toronto’s population yet receives less than 1% of the hospital donations.
Their strategy was to convince Torontonians – who take great pride in Canada’s universal health care system - that just because we have universal coverage, doesn’t mean we have health care equality. In fact, there are many, even in our own backyard, being left behind.
The insight was that within Toronto, there are in fact two cities who were on opposite sides of the health care gap.
Scarborough is an often overlooked and undermined district in the Greater Toronto Area. Often
colloquially referred to disparagingly by one of its many nicknames such as Scarlem, Scarberia, or Scompton, it is frequently looked down upon and ignored by the rest of the city despite accounting for 1/4 of its population.
They set out to give the people of Scarborough a voice. Their idea was to have Scarborough send personalized messages to the people of the GTA that would bring attention to the health care gap that existed in their own backyard and invite them to help change it. These messages would each end with ‘Love, Scarborough’, a phrase that would serve as both a sign-off and a call to action.
‘Love, Scarborough’ is an integrated campaign consisting of Broadcast, Cinema, Online, Out of Home, and Print that was created to kick off a historic donation push for SHN. It is built around the idea of an open letter from Scarborough to the rest of Toronto imploring them to help level the playing field. Their hero film asks the hard-hitting question of ‘when will we all be treated equally?’ and brings attention to the fact that right now the city’s most diverse area is also its most ignored.
Throughout the campaign, the font that is featured was created from the real handwriting of 26
different individuals connected to SHN – one for each letter of the alphabet. On LoveScarborough.ca, people can learn about these individuals stories and even submit their own story using the font, aptly named “Scarborough Sans”.
In the first month alone, traffic to the SHN websites increased by 900% from the year prior. SHN’s social channels saw over 20,000 engagements in the first 3 weeks and a 25% increase in followers. The Mayor of Toronto even named January 13th ‘Love Scarborough Day’ in the city.
Among those exposed to the campaign, there was a +30 point lift in brand awareness, a +27 point lift in high familiarity, and a +27 lift in consideration to donate to SHN.
But the campaign didn’t just generate awareness and intent, it generated donations. The very first day the campaign was launched, $1 million was donated to SHN. In the campaign’s first month the number of online donors increased by +281% and the total value of online donations increased by +296%. In the first two months of the campaign, offline donations had already exceeded the entire previous year by +217%. Their efforts culminated in a historic announcement of a $1B investment from the provincial government towards redevelopment and expansion projects for the Scarborough Health Network.
Finally, the people of Scarborough can feel like they are on equal footing with the rest of Toronto.