the challenge

Saint Elizabeth Healthcare wanted to create awareness and insight leading up to the launch of their Journey Home Hospice centre; a safe, welcoming and caring place for people who are terminally ill, experiencing housing instability, to live out their final weeks and days.

The biggest challenge for facilities like Journey Home is lack of general public awareness. On any given night, there are more than 5,000 people experiencing homelessness in Toronto. And every year, many die in isolation, without a roof over their heads. This is a societal crisis and something that many Torontonians don’t even think about. People who are battling a terminal illness have significantly more barriers in finding safe housing during their end of life.

the Q-lution.

Raw Stories told by Real People.

We collaborated with our client to identify six individuals who would be willing to tell their story for our larger documentary series on homelessness in Toronto. Each powerful short identifies a unique challenge of living life on the streets, while being terminally ill. Their personal stories remind us that Toronto’s medically unwell homeless population aren’t a simple statistic or a “social issue”; they are mothers, daughters, husbands, and brothers. They are real people all wanting the humane right to die with dignity. 

To help amplify the series on a tight budget, we took to the social streets and strategized a social media campaign that releases one person’s story a week; leading up to the Hospice launch.

the results.

The engagement and watch through rates were through the roof. The full series had over 430,000 impressions over the 6-week social buy. View rates outperformed industry standards by over 8% and overall costs per click and action were 13 times lower than the industry standard.

Check out some of the individual stories: