When Extendicare signed on with Bayard, we proposed something extremely innovative. We advised Extendicare to stop its old advertising approach, which treated audiences as targets, and instead proposed a new way of thinking and seeing.  Nurses and caregivers are compassionate, caring people. It’s what inspired them to pursue a career in healthcare in the first place. And with that passion and energy, we knew that each employee and potential new hire brought that same spirit of caring to their home and personal life. We also knew that Extendicare saw work-life balance as mission critical for its people to be fulfilled and happy. To that extent, the company provided exceptional programs and incentives to help its staff realize not just professional goals, but also personal ones. We believed that to truly give insight into who Extendicare was, we needed to not just focus on its people in some conventional testimonial way, but to get to know them, their inspirations, their passions and how they bring that personal ethos to their life and their job.

Solutions:
The campaign concept was simple. Forget about stock photography of nurses in scrubs smiling at a camera. Forget about cliché images of healthcare scenes that say nothing about the company or its people.  We presented the people behind Extendicare in ways no healthcare provider has ever done. We showed who they really are and what inspires them off the job as much as what does on the job. Those are the people candidates would be working with. Those are the managers who think of programs and schedules and employees needs. This campaign showed who Extendicare really is.

We knew that what inspires a healthcare professional to be a healthcare professional is not at issue when recruiting experienced people. What inspires a healthcare professional to work for Extendicare versus a competitor was—and that’s exactly what this campaign did.  It tells this story by allowing its people to be who they are—whether at home or with a patient. And who they are is a talented group of compassionate, caring, diverse team of professionals.