How do you turn gratitude into action?
The Show Love Project, a grassroots movement of gratitude, built on the insight that love is medicine — and designed to feel earnest, not corporate.
Rather than launch another awareness campaign, we built a movement centered around authentic human connection, to lift the spirits of frontline healthcare workers through genuine and personal expressions of love and gratitude — from patients, from coworkers, and from the community at large. The Show Love Project invited everyone to share messages celebrating healthcare workers. Each note became proof that compassion still connects us to one another. By activating community voices and giving people a platform to say “thank you,” we fostered a two-way experience. Those real voices became the heart of the project — and an ongoing source of content that could carry appreciation far beyond a single interaction. And Show Love quickly became embedded within the employer brand, as a significant expression of the larger enterprise brand, We Show Up.
Medical Marketing and Media Awards
THE CHALLENGE
Build genuine goodwill and connection with healthcare workers and the community.
Create a culture of appreciation that could live inside hospitals, extend into communities and ultimately connect healthcare workers across the HCA Healthcare enterprise.
OUR APPROACH
Honest. Human. Healing.
To ground the campaign in real insight, we conducted qualitative interviews with hospital staff, studied employee sentiment surveys, and explored the behavioral science of gratitude. The findings: Sincerity mattered more than polish, and expressing or receiving appreciation measurably reduces stress and strengthens well-being. That insight shaped both the tone and the mechanics of the campaign, and our strategy became clear: Communicate to the healthcare workers that they had the support and gratitude of their patients, the community, and each other. And instead of telling healthcare workers they were appreciated, we created a way for people to show them.
The Show Love Project turned gratitude into action.
Love has many ways to show up.
A note. A cup of coffee. A heart. A vending machine that dispenses affirmation and joy. The Show Love Project was designed to flex across places, people and moments.
The Show Love Coffee Truck exchanged a note for a cup of coffee, becoming a moving expression of gratitude as it traveled across the country. An interactive heart sculpture invited colleagues to share appreciation. The Show Love Fest turned gratitude for healthcare workers into a community celebration in Asheville, while in Charleston, the Mending Machine offered small gifts and personalized affirmations.
Different expressions, one idea: your community, inside and outside the hospital, shows up with appreciation for you.
And love kept growing.
The Show Love Project evolved into an enterprise initiative under the We Show Up brand platform, designed to scale across markets. What began as a simple invitation — write a note, show some love — became a repeatable way for HCA Healthcare to strengthen colleague connection, bring communities closer to their healthcare workers, and make appreciation a tangible part of the brand experience. Along the way, it generated authentic stories that humanized the HCA Healthcare brand and made showing love and appreciation for colleagues and care teams a consistent, visible and participatory part of how the organization, the community, and the colleagues show up for each other.
Creative activations
Our work works.
“Having that trust with everyone in the agency, and being able to count on them to take risks and serve our needs is what has made our 20+ year relationship successful.”
Nicole Baxter, Chief Brand Officer, HCA Healthcare
