Ronald McDonald House programs allow parents to stay close to their hospitalized child and receive the comforts of home without incurring hotel and food costs. The organization doesn’t provide intensive medical treatment, rather the care and comfort families need while they’re going through difficult times as their children face treatment.
Recently, McDonald’s and Wieden+Kennedy worked with director India Sleem to create a campaign that brought the Ronald McDonald House’s unique mission to life by celebrating all the things they do to make an incredibly difficult time a little easier for families who need it most. The campaign was cast entirely with real families, who spent time at Ronald McDonald House Programs across Ohio, Atlanta and Washington DC. The team interviewed each family extensively before shooting, pulling inspiration from the real experiences each family had while staying at a House.
Here’s a brief Q&A with the team behind it:
Q: What made the team so passionate about this project with the Ronald McDonald House?
Macie: Getting to work with real families, speak with them firsthand, and see the positive connection they had with this place – even though they were all going through the worst times of their lives there – made a lasting impact on me.
Simran: I would say also working with a director that was so passionate about this meant a lot to us. India Sleem was phenomenal. She really cared about the project and it set the whole tone on set.
Q: What are some things that stuck out to you from the shoot?
Macie: We pulled every scene in the film from real things these families experienced. One of the most memorable was a little boy who had leukemia and had stayed at the House for, I think, 291 days. Children who go into remission typically have “No Mo Chemo” parties hosted by the hospital or the House. He never got one due to the pandemic, so we threw him one with his family as a surprise, which is in the film.
Q: Which story/stories in particular stood out to you from the families?
Simran: There was a woman breastfeeding her child in one of the scenes and she was explaining her story about what her child had been through to our director India, and the crew and everyone broke down.
Macie: There was one family who had spent a lot of time at the hospital for their daughter. The mother would make her daughter her favorite homemade food so she didn’t have to eat hospital food all the time and we put that in the film. It stuck out to me as something my own mom would do.
Q: What role did the director India Sleem play in bringing the creative vision to life?
Krish: The number one question that I’ve gotten when I’ve shown people the work is, “How did you get the kids and families to open up so authentically? What did you do from a creative standpoint?” And I say, “There’s nothing I could do, that was really just the director coming to her own and that’s who she is and what she represents, so it felt so human because it came from a very authentic place for her.” This project wouldn’t have been even close to what it is without India Sleem.
Q: From a creative perspective, how did you bring the RMHC mission to life after interviewing the families? What was the process after you spoke to the families?
Macie: They do so many incredible things, it’s hard to condense it into one thought! They provide housing, dental care, private wait rooms, basic medical care and on top of that, they have the McDonald’s brand name. You go on Twitter and you search “Ronald McDonald House” and you see, “Do you make Happy Meals for kids?” “Do you provide medical care and research?”
So we focused on one thing that kept popping up in our interviews with the families: That this is an incredibly positive and even sometimes happy place you go to during a time that’s so sad. The fact that this organization provides such a unique benefit is so special and different and we wanted to celebrate that.
Q: On a personal level, what did you take away from making this work?
Macie: This notion of parents being that constant rock for everybody else. Putting on that brave face everyday.Knowing that they’re going through so much and still have to do it with a smile for their kids.
Simran: It made me want to give back to my communities. Seeing these volunteers who are so invested in an organization like this was hugely inspiring. Ronald McDonald House is really the rock and support for people who are going through very tough times, and there’s no more important work than that.
Krish: This is a happy place. You walk in there and it truly is a place of joy. Everyone who is there really wants to be there. Everyone who helps out there is really their most authentic selves. It never felt forced at any given point and everyone we met felt so genuine–it really came from the heart. That’s one thing I took away from this.
Q: What were the results of this campaign? How did it make an impact?
Krish: 21% more donations this year over last year.
Simran: 11% in the first month and climbed since