What they were up against

Founder and entertainer Danny Thomas opened the doors to St. Jude in 1962 with the dream that “no child should die in the dawn of life.” It’s an inspiring mission, but the children’s research hospital was entirely reliant upon donations to fund their operation and they were seeing a downward trend in donations. When St. Jude approached us, they needed help reversing this trend. Yamamoto was all in and jumped at the opportunity to work with such an incredible institution.

What we did to help

Rather than following suit and using celebrity endorsements, we took a more raw, authentic and human-driven approach. Our goal was to bring viewers closer to the advanced cancer treatments and loving care St. Jude provides to all children and their parents. We created a TV campaign featuring a real patient, her mother and the candid moments that happen between the two of them as well as captured the interactions they had with the St. Jude staff.

This new approach resulted in their most successful television campaign in their fundraising history, reaching the best DRTV response rates they’d seen in 50 years, including the highest number of total donations and the highest average donation. St. Jude was so thrilled with the results, they asked us to help revamp a variety of fundraising channels, including direct mail and donor pledge fulfillment kits. It was truly some of the most rewarding work we’ve ever done.