Children’s National
Problem: Pediatric healthcare advertising had become emotionally safe, visually predictable, and disconnected from the real stakes parents face every day.
Parents will do anything to give their kids an edge, especially when it comes to their health. The category knows this, yet most work still leans on sentimental, soft-focus cues that blur together and fade fast.
We chose a different path. To win the business, we set out to capture the shared, almost defiant spirit of the doctors, nurses, parents, and patients at Children’s National. Grow Up Stronger wasn’t designed as a campaign. It was built as a belief system, one that ultimately became the brand’s enduring identity and still stands today as its tagline.
Because many places help kids grow up strong. Children’s National helps them grow up stronger.
Children’s National
Year 2
In year two of Grow Up Stronger, we brought real patients into the story,
drawing from more than 70 years of lived experience. These weren’t symbols or stand-ins. They were living proof of what it truly means to grow up stronger.
By extending the campaign through longer-form patient interviews, we unlocked deeper, more human storytelling across social channels, letting the brand speak through real lives, not lines of copy.
Grow Up Stronger Site
To help the idea take root internally, we built a custom website designed specifically for the people behind the care at Children’s National. It became a shared space where staff, doctors, and surgeons could define what Grow Up Stronger meant to them in their own words. They shared reflections, left encouragement for one another, and connected their daily work to the strength they help build in patients and colleagues alike. The site didn’t just support the campaign. It helped turn the idea into a lived, internal belief long before it showed up on billboards or screens.
