Regenerative Medicine Institute

The greater the complexity of a communication challenge, the greater the need for a succinct solution. The stakes are high, and the potential is real: Scientists at Cedars-Sinai are accelerating discoveries with the power to stop even the deadliest diseases.

Researchers at the Regenerative Medicine Institute can revert adult cells from a person’s body back in time to a stem cell state. This allows them to create any of the 250 types of cells in the human body—key agents in helping the body heal itself. The challenge for Distinc_ was finding a way to make the complex technical work comprehensible and compelling to a general audience.

As the RE concept for the campaign took shape, we realized that the topic of stem cells provided a unique opportunity to unite people from all walks of life.

As the RE theme demonstrates, stem cell research touches almost every major area of medicine, so almost any person can see a unique connection to this pivotal work.

Cedars-Sinai has been successfully leading groundbreaking medical research for decades, but sometimes that work can get politicized, which happened with stem cell research. Further, the idea that a skin cell could be removed and regrown into a cell for the pancreas or the eye wasn’t widely understood.

The resulting system was highly flexible, allowing Cedars-Sinai’s Board of Governors to tailor customized appeals tuned to prospective donors’ individual stories.

Fundraising around this research had to be high-touch, meaning materials would need to be succinct and compelling for high-capacity prospective supporters.

By crafting a campaign that focuses on reducing the gap between dreaming and curing, we gave the subject an emotional anchor that made it instantly relatable to potential donors.

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