Nick Capanear
Executive Creative Director
GSW, a Syneos Health company
Creative that Raises Awareness
Nick Capanear is leading GSW’s charge to change the conversation in healthcare by creating empathetic and relevant connections between people and their health. And sometimes this means being on vanguard.
“In healthcare advertising there is a lot of noise,” Nick says. “Our structure and creative helps cut through the clutter to deliver messages that can impact people’s lives through their healthcare. That’s the kind of work that makes a real difference.”
In 2017, GSW offered its services pro bono to MiracleFeet, a charity that aids children born with clubfoot in developing countries, to raise awareness and funding for clubfoot. The award-winning “This Little Piggy” campaign accomplished this by telling real-life stories of what happens to children born with clubfoot in other countries. The campaign has risen above the noise to draw attention to a defect that is easily treatable in first-world countries, but all too common in other parts of the world. To do so, the creative campaign took the “This Little Piggy” nursery rhyme and twisted it in a darker direction alongside pictures of clubfoot.
“The campaign had to be aggressive and raw to be effective, as we needed to seize the attention of the general public who may know little or nothing at all about clubfoot,” Nick says. “We rose above the noise by being truthful about the stories. They’re tough to hear; very young children are living through horrific experiences all because of this birth defect. Sugar coating this disease does no one any favors. We needed people to understand the real effects of untreated clubfoot.”
Thanks to Nick’s leadership, in 2017 alone, GSW was a 2017 CLIO frontrunner winning one silver, two bronze awards, and one short list nod for MiracleFeet. MiracleFeet was also published in both Communication Arts and Lürzers Archive magazine.
“What we love about the work we’re doing with MiracleFeet is that they came to us,” Nick adds. “To have that reputation as an agency that is eager to take a creative chance and invest in doing good in the world is something we’re tremendously proud of.”
