With new brand campaign, Akron Children’s celebrates the wonders of childhood

Akron Children's new brand campaign celebrates the joys of childhood

01-28-2019 (Akron, Mahoning Valley, Ohio)

18 years. 6,570 days. 157,680 hours. Childhood is both fleeting and finite - a million moments big and small, from heroic first steps to awkward first crushes and countless other milestones along the way to independence. 

In the weeks ahead, Akron Children’s Hospital will launch, “More childhood, please®,” a new brand campaign focusing on preserving, protecting and enriching the special time that is childhood.

The multi-year, multi-platform effort will feature real home videos that capture the simple, everyday moments of childhood, as well as some heart-tugging ones documented within the hospital, such as doctors and nurses gathering in a hallway for a teen’s joyful end-of-chemo celebration.

“Through ‘More childhood, please,® we have the chance to highlight our role in safeguarding and celebrating everything that’s special about childhood,” said Beth Smith, vice president for marketing and public relations at Akron Children’s. “We want kids to be kids, no matter what challenge they’re facing. And our care providers are here to support families – not only during those big moments like surgeries and hospitalizations – but day in and day out.”

The campaign, created by the Cleveland-based agency Marcus Thomas LLC, kicks off at the end of January with social media, digital radio, outdoor, and television ads, including a Super Bowl spot that’s part of a regional ad buy.

“Over the past decade, we’ve had the privilege of meeting some incredible kids and have shared the work of Akron Children’s through their individual stories,” said Stephanie Burris, executive creative director at Marcus Thomas LLC. “’More childhood, please®’ allows us to capture the amazing things that the organization is doing for all kids. They are truly a defender of childhood – every little piece of it. It’s about helping kids when an illness or injury interrupts their lives, but it’s about emotional and social health, too. It’s about showing appreciation for – and advocating for – all the moments that make childhood so remarkable. Turns out we didn’t need a cinematographer or special effects crew to bring these moments to life. Just a lot of loving parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, all armed with smartphones, ready to document childhood as it speeds by.”

Celebrating childhood may be the center of its new brand campaign, but it’s what Akron Children’s has been doing for more than 125 years as an independent, freestanding children’s hospital, said Smith.

“We combine the best pediatric medical care with high touch moments – the encounter with a member of the hospital’s Doggie Brigade™, the pediatrician who is the master of the knock-knock joke, or the  child life specialist who knows just what to say to reduce a child’s anxiety before an MRI,” she said. “These ads are funny, poignant, endearing and real, and we are excited at the opportunities this campaign offers to share authentic moments of childhood that we are privileged to help protect.”

To see the ads, go to: https://www.akronchildrens.org/morechildhoodplease/