St. Mike’s turns its name into a call to action with ‘Be Like Mike’
Bensimon Byrne’s first work for Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation puts its people and mindset at the centre, with a film directed by Hubert Davis and music from former patient Haviah Mighty.
Who is mike? Not a person, but a mindset: compassionate, innovative, committed, relentless.
JUNO Award-winning musician Haviah Mighty was 33 when she had life-saving heart surgery at St. Michael’s Hospital. Recovering in the ICU, she could hear her surgeon checking in on patient after patient. “I was in disbelief that he was just saving lives back to back to back,” she says.
But it wasn’t just what the St. Mike’s team did that moved her. It was how they did it. Dr. Gianluigi Bisleri took an interest in her life—her music, her career, the world she had built and wanted to keep building. He was committed to helping her return to all of it.
That experience—and the mindset behind it—is at the heart of be like mike, a new brand campaign for St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation created by Toronto agency Bensimon Byrne. Mighty’s “Trendsetter,” with Connor Price, provides the soundtrack to the campaign’s hero film.
Who is mike?
Known locally as St. Mike’s, St. Michael’s Hospital is a fully affiliated teaching and research hospital serving Toronto’s urban communities and beyond. It is a Level 1 trauma centre and provincial hub for neurosurgery, complex cardiac and cardiovascular care and more, and is home to one of the largest MS clinics in North America.
Be like mike turns the hospital’s familiar nickname into a call to action, capturing the compassionate, innovative and relentless mindset behind the hospital’s care, research and medical breakthroughs. Rather than centre the campaign on illness or crisis, the strategy celebrates the people who make that work possible.
The campaign arrives at a time when public trust in institutions is fragile, yet trust in frontline healthcare workers has never been stronger. New research commissioned by St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation found that 91% of Canadians rank frontline healthcare workers as the single most trusted voice acting in the public’s best interest, above government and business.
At St. Mike’s, that trust is earned every day by people who believe exceptional care should never come with exceptions.
“We hear it again and again. There’s ‘something different’ about St. Mike’s,” says Kevin Goldthorp, President and CEO of St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation. “It’s a belief among our staff and supporters that there is always more we can do, more we can discover, and more we can give to every patient. Be like mike gives us a shared language for that ethos, and a way to invite others into it. A way to express not only what we do, but who we are.”
“Healthcare advertising often starts in a place of crisis. We wanted to do something that felt different — bright, optimistic and full of life,” says Joseph Bonnici, Chief Creative Officer, Bensimon Byrne. “The more time we spent with St. Mike’s, the more we realized the story was really about its people and the mindset they share. That became be like mike.”
A film from the frontlines of care
At the centre of the campaign is a 90-second film directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Hubert Davis, which brings the platform to life through the perspective of a patient moving through St. Mike’s. A young man wakes in the hospital after an injury and discovers that everyone caring for him—the nurses, the doctors, the surgeons—share the same mindset. The film captures the urgency of trauma care, the ambition of surgical innovation, the impact of philanthropy, and the humanity that runs through every floor of the hospital.
The campaign extends across film, out-of-home, digital and social, with be like mike appearing throughout Toronto and across the hospital itself. Bensimon Byrne partnered with TADIEM sister companies OneMethod on design and Narrative XPR on public relations for the integrated campaign.
How Canadians can support be like mike
Be like mike invites the public to stand behind the people of St. Michael’s Hospital, most directly by supporting the Foundation, whose donors fund the research, equipment, and care that make moments like Haviah’s and Gavin’s possible. Every gift made at belikemike.ca advances this life-changing work.
There are other ways to take part, too:
• mike Drop: Purchase a limited-edition mike hat, available at belikemike.ca.
• Open mike: A public storytelling platform inviting Canadians to share their own St. Michael’s Hospital experiences on social using #belikemike
Join us. Visit belikemike.ca
Real stories behind be like mike
The people of St. Mike’s and its community give be like mike its meaning.
Gavin Higgs is one of them. Rushed to St. Mike’s with a broken neck and facing a high-risk spinal operation, he asked his surgeon, Dr. Howard Ginsberg, “Do you have this?” Dr. Ginsberg’s answer: “I’ve got this.” After surgery and a long recovery, Gavin found himself drawn back to the place that saved his life, this time as a committed donor, volunteer, and advocate.
For trauma surgeon Dr. Najma Ahmed, mike is the courage the job demands when the stakes are highest. On July 22, 2018, the night of the Danforth shooting, she was getting ready for bed when the Code Orange came. She rushed to St. Mike’s and operated through the night. “We saved lives that night,” she says. “Every day, we show up to fight for every patient who deserves every possible chance.”
For neurosurgeon Dr. Vitor Mendes Pereira, mike is innovation that widens access to care, a focus that recently culminated in a world-first remote robotic-assisted neurovascular procedure. “Medicine is not only about what we can do, but about who we can reach,” he says.
About St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation
St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation has a bold vision: Exceptional care. For everyone. In every critical moment. Without exception. Driven by a passionate community of donors and volunteers, we empower our health teams to advance excellence, drive innovation, and champion equity. Our supporters fund groundbreaking research, life-saving equipment, state-of-the-art spaces and efforts that uplift our most marginalized community members.
Survey Methodology
These findings are from a survey commissioned by St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation from May 26th to May 28th, 2026, among a representative sample of 1,502 online adult Canadians who are members of the Angus Reid Forum. The survey was conducted in English and French. For comparison purposes only, a probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of +/-2.53 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
CREDITS
Campaign Title: be like mike
Client: St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation
Agency: Bensimon Byrne
Chief Creative Officer: Joseph Bonnici
SVP, Strategy: Jennifer Bell
Executive Creative Director: Gints Bruveris
Creative Director: David Mueller
Writer: Nate Houseley
Writer: Sophia Wilby
Director of Production: Michelle Pilling
Group Director, Delivery: Marli Bennett
Associate Business Lead: Erika Ymana
Senior Project Manager: Caity Abugov
Media Director: Sarah Lowden
Senior Media Planner: Jess Felipe
PR: NarrativeXPR
VP, Narrative: Rohini Mukherji
Account Director: Robyn Penney
Account Director, Marketing Integration: Ashley Belfast
Senior Account Manager: Tanny Chui
Executive Creative Director: Debbie Chan
Art Director: Zoe Gray
Writer: Jaime Sugyama
Director, Experiential: Jaclyn Kirk
XM Account Manager: Paige Canning
Design: OneMethod
Executive Design Director: Jeff Rae
Senior Designer: Liam Parker
Designer: Eldhose Kuriyan
Production Company: Folktale Films
Director: Hubert Davis
Executive Producer: Tom Evelyn
Executive Producer: Nicholas Taylor
Executive Producer: Reuben Taylor
Line Producer: Adam Rodness
Director of Photography: Catherin Lutes
Photoshoot: Instil Image
Photographer: Dave Todon
Line Producer: Francesca Marchese
Editorial: Rooster Post
Editor: Michelle Czukar
Producer: Sam MacLaren
Online + Colour Transfer: Fort York
Producer: Armen Bunag
Producer: Katie Fowler
Colourist: Jason Zukowski
Audio: Berkeley Inc.
Creative Director: Jared Kuemper
Producer: Julia Vasiliev
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