World kindness day

An unexpected act of kindness that introduced a brand to a new home.

A little background. St. Luke’s Health was preparing to adopt its parent company’s national brand campaign: Hello humankindness. The adoption process could’ve been a simple “copy and paste,” but we wanted the campaign to feel big. We wanted it to be awesome. And we wanted it to resonate with St. Luke’s Health’s market at a local level.

The Houston community shares their experiences with World Kindness Day using branded hashtags.

“Human” and “kindness” was a marriage made in heaven.

World Kindness Day was coming up on November 13, and we knew that was our golden opportunity to officially launch the Hello humankindness campaign. We couldn’t think of a better way to define humankindness in our community than by being an example — and creating an unexpected act of kindness.

So what exactly is humankindness? It’s the healing power of humanity. Acts of kindness happen when people do unexpected things to make others feel better. This was the inspiration to do something special for the community during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Leading up to the day. We used the weeks leading up to World Kindness Day to post content featuring our staff, physicians, and community partners demonstrating humankindness through action.

Two golden retrievers sit beside pavement chalk artwork reading "Happy World Kindness Day"

Who doesn’t love a free coffee?

Here’s the idea. We came up with the idea that St. Luke’s could prepay for 1,300 customers’ coffees at coffee locations throughout the communities we serve, plus the Starbucks shops in our hospitals. It would be a special surprise for customers and our employees, courtesy of St. Luke’s Health. Definitely an act of kindness.

We designed a campaign-themed coffee sleeve with a message from St. Luke’s Health encouraging others to pay it forward, creating the perfect branded prop for photo ops.

We developed a landing page to host user-generated content and encourage others to spread kindness using our Kindness Generator and Card Creator.

Something else. We purchased Starbucks gift cards and shared the barcodes on our Instagram Story and the Stories of a handful of local influencers. All of the influencers loved the idea of spreading kindness so much that they agreed to do so free of charge.

While we officially partnered with seven influencers, 18 local Instagram accounts with a total of 474,250 followers ended up participating in our World Kindness Day initiative with multiple posts.

A recap of DECODE’s efforts for St. Luke’s Health World Kindness Day.

Can a cup of coffee make an impression? How does 141,000 sound?

  • total impressions on St. Luke’s Health’s social media posts

  • %

    MOM increase in impressions

  • %

    MOM increase in engagement on Instagram alone

  • %

    MOM increase in Instagram followers

Recognition

Healthcare Advertising Awards - Total Public Relations Campaign - Best in Show
Healthcare Advertising Awards - Total Public Relations Campaign - Gold Award
AMA Houston 2021 Crystal Award - Maverick Marketing
Healthcare Advertising Awards - Website - Silver Award
American Advertising Awards - Web/Interactive for Local Healthcare - Silver Award