Montreal Children’s Hospital was Montreal’s first institution focused on paediatric care. Despite major accomplishments and breakthroughs in research, the hospital struggled to get Francophone Quebecers to consider it, assuming care was only offered in English.

In the past, the hospital foundation conducted campaigns to boost awareness and donations, but these efforts remained modest, targeting loyal donors and the Anglophone community. To shift perceptions and breakthrough with the francophone audience, the foundation knew it needed to be provocative and unexpected.

With this in mind, they went back to their starting point: children. Rather than focusing on the expected territory of childhood disease, they focused on how to define a healthy child. Doctors at the hospital said, “When we look at the emergency waiting room, usually we can tell which child is more of a concern. The ones playing around and teasing their siblings are generally okay. It’s the ones sitting quietly in their parent’s arms that we worry about."

This is where the insight emerged: a healthy child is a bratty one, or as they like to say in Quebec, a “tannant”. This is how the campaign was born. To break through the clutter, The Colony Project brought the campaign to life in a mischievous way, celebrating kids’ brattiness, almost insolent in tone, something people wouldn't expect from a hospital foundation.

The crux of the campaign was to remind parents in a non-patronizing way, how lucky they are to have bratty kids. When kids are acting out, parents are in fact, the luckiest people in the world. And when kids are sick, Children’s Hospital works hard to get them back to their bratty, silly selves.

The campaign was deployed as part of an integrated communications strategy built around a creative video deployed on TV and in digital environments. Understanding their target, a PR strategy was built to reach the Francophone community first. Rather than mass outreach, they adopted a strategic tiered approach to break through the cluttered charity space and Covid-19 news.

They started with an exclusive interview with La Presse, the most prestigious Francophone newspaper in Quebec.

Then, the day of the launch, they deployed a press release introducing the video and offering interviews with their French-speaking spokesperson. While tailored media outreach was preferred, it was important to announce the foundation's biggest campaign to date.

Finally, they conducted targeted media relations to news, health and lifestyle media, and distributed a mailer to Francophone influencers, right before the winter break. This was particularly relevant given most families were stuck at home this year and as all parents know, a bored kid is a bratty one.

But above all, they made sure conversations carried through the mischievous tone that makes the campaign so unique. Telling media and influencers that the foundation wanted to help keep their kids “tannants”, something many parents dreaded in the middle of the pandemic’s second wave, was a great way to open the conversation and tell their story.

This strategy generated amazing results. The campaign generated 21 million impressions, 100 times the average for PR campaigns in Quebec, with mentions in Quebec’s most prominent French-speaking media outlets with La Presse was so moved by the campaign that they covered it twice. The campaign significantly boosted the foundation’s awareness with the Francophones. Where most of the past foundation’s campaigns reached five Anglophones for one Francophone, Long Live Little Brats touched five Francophones for one Anglophone. The video generated 70,000 engagements, twice the number received when they announced a partnership with PK Subban and donations spiked, with an increase of 68% between December 2019 and December 2020.