St. Michael's made every staffer 'mike' — the hospital as a wearable brand (interview)

St. Michael's is both a health-equity hospital and a research powerhouse, but Canadian hospital fundraising had become, in Bensimon Byrne CCO Joseph Bonnici's words, 'a lot like sports marketing' — campaign after campaign with the same look. The foundation briefed the agency, in their first collaboration, for a brand that was distinctive, ownable and built to last.

Name every single employee 'mike': the whole hospital shares one name tag, so 'Be like mike' turns the institution itself into the ask.

Director Hubert Davis shot a hero film following one young man through the hospital, every member of staff wearing the same 'mike' name tag, scored with Haviah Mighty's 'Trendsetter' — the JUNO winner's heart was saved by St. Mike's surgery at 33. OneMethod designed what the team calls the most wearable hospital brand in the world: a merchandise line carrying the 'Be like mike' wordmark, supported by OOH.

The merchandise 'sold out almost immediately' (self-reported in the LBB interview), and a week after launch foundation CMO Joyce Ho described the response as overwhelmingly positive, with staff, donors and patients sharing the film; awareness, engagement and fundraising performance will be measured over time.

In an LBB interview, St. Michael's Hospital Foundation CMO Joyce Ho, Bensimon Byrne CCO Joseph Bonnici and director Hubert Davis describe 'Be like mike', the Toronto hospital's new fundraising platform. The centerpiece film shows a young man moving through trauma care and research floors where everyone — surgeons, nurses, porters — wears the same 'mike' name tag, because, as the campaign has it, every person there shares one goal: 'exceptional care should never come with exceptions'.

The craft choices all point at breaking hospital-ad convention. Rather than licensing generic music, the team built the film around Haviah Mighty's 'Trendsetter' after learning the JUNO-winning musician owed her life to St. Mike's heart surgery; Berkley Music's Jared Kuemper suggested the track. OneMethod, Bensimon Byrne's design sibling, pushed the brand into culture with a merch line meant to be 'the most wearable hospital brand in the world' — and Bonnici recalls it 'sold out almost immediately', with strangers stopping him to ask where his 'Be like mike' cap came from.

Ho says the foundation tested the work with frontline staff, physicians, patients, donors and volunteers, and that a week after launch the early signals are pride and organic sharing — a neurosurgery patient in tears telling the team the campaign felt true to her experience. Both parties describe the platform as a long-term position: 'We didn't invent the qualities behind Be like mike. They were already part of St. Mike's. We simply gave people a way to express them.'

The central device — one shared name tag for every employee — is ownable and instantly legible, unlike category-standard gratitude montages.

A real patient-artist link (Haviah Mighty's St. Mike's surgery) makes the soundtrack part of the proof, not the polish.

The merch sellout is a self-reported result and is marked as such; the interview also names what will be measured next.

Full credit chain on record: foundation, agency, design studio, director, editor, composer.

A name tag can carry a brand: collapsing thousands of jobs into one shared name made a hospital's ethos wearable, singable and buyable.

The platform rolled out across film, OOH, social and a redesigned landing page, with sub-brand and environment applications to follow. The foundation says it will track awareness, engagement and fundraising performance over time; Bonnici's early proof point is seeing the merchandise worn around Toronto unprompted.