Canadian Dermatology Association
How a single campaign brief grew into a lasting creative partnership and, eventually, a milestone video that celebrated 100 years of a national Canadian institution.
CLIENT
Canadian Dermatology Association
SECTOR
Health | Non-profit
RELATIONSHIP
2023-ongoing
SERVICES DELIVERED
Campaign Strategy · Advertising · Video Production · 2D Animation · Social Media Support
A strong foundation. An opportunity to do more.
The Canadian Dermatology Association has represented certified dermatologists across Canada since 1925. Their marketing and communications team has built a strong foundation over the years. They are a nationally trusted product recognition program with over 260 certified products, a peer-reviewed journal with a growing impact factor, a membership renewing at 90% year over year, and a growing digital presence across web and social.
The CDA already knows how to communicate well. What they were looking for was a creative partner they could bring in for specific campaigns and productions, one who would understand the institution and sector, respect the great work already being done, and show up as a genuine extension of their team.
One brief. One partnership waiting to happen.
In 2023, the CDA's marketing team needed a campaign partner for a specific challenge: building consumer awareness of their product recognition program. The CDA logo appears on many skincare products, from Aveeno to CeraVe, Cetaphil to La Roche-Posay. The program's credibility was well-established within the dermatology community. The opportunity was to make it mean something to everyday Canadians. The idea was to turn a mark of professional endorsement into something people would actively seek out on store shelves.
It was a focused brief. Jester came in to help execute it well. What happened next was a relationship.
Each engagement building on the last.
The engagement began with one campaign and grew from there, with each project deepening Jester's understanding of the CDA's voice, audiences, and priorities along with building the familiarity that comes from working closely with a team over time.
2023 Look for the Logo campaign
Working alongside the CDA's marketing team, Jester developed strategy and creative for a bilingual, multi-platform consumer campaign. Platform-native formats across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and X — in English and French — alongside a holiday contest activation with brand partners Hawaiian Tropic, Marcelle, and Cetaphil. The creative was built to make the CDA's product endorsement feel warm and accessible to consumers who had never thought to look for it before.
2024 Sun Awareness campaign + website support
As the partnership deepened, Jester took on strategy, social content creation, and video production — including 2D animation — for the CDA's annual Sun Awareness campaign, one of their highest-profile public health moments of the year. Alongside campaign work, Jester began supporting the CDA's WordPress website on a project and retainer basis, improving the layout and user experience of key sections of a large, complex site. That support continues today.
2025 Interactive Annual Report
Jester produced the CDA's 2024 Annual Report as a fully interactive digital experience, moving the organization's year-in-review from a static PDF to a dynamic format built for how members and stakeholders actually consume content online.
2025 100th anniversary video
When the CDA needed a production partner to help celebrate their centennial in 2025, they came back to Jester. We managed the full production of a commemorative history short documentary, including research; recording remote interviews with members from across the country; scripting; archival footage integration; voiceover; and editorial. The video traces Canadian dermatology from its founding in the 1920s through a century of milestones, firsts, and advocacy. The video premiered to delegates at the CDA's 100th Annual Conference in Halifax.
✦ HOW WE’D APPROACH THIS WITH AN AI LENS
A relationship like this one benefits from AI most in the places that tax a lean communications team and their agency partners. For the bilingual campaign work, a tailored brand voice model trained on CDA's approved content would keep tone and terminology consistent across English and French assets without the back-and-forth. For the anniversary video, AI-powered discovery would compress the research phase, surfacing milestones, mapping chronology, and preparing interview questions, so the team spends more time on the creative work and less time on the time-consuming groundwork. As for the ongoing website and social support, AI-assisted workflows allow us move faster on routine production, freeing both teams to focus where judgment matters most.
The right support at the right moment.
The CDA's communications team delivered standout results in 2024, and the numbers show it. Sun Awareness Month drove a 220% increase in social audience growth. Website traffic reached more than half a million total views, a 55% increase year over year. The eBulletin consistently averaged a 66.9% open rate. These are the results of CDA’s skilled, dedicated marketing team that knows its audience and how to reach it. Jester's role was to show up when the scope demanded it, adding strategy insights along with professional video, animation, and graphic production capacity and campaign expertise so the team could execute at the level their ambition deserved.
Not just a project. A partnership.
The CDA and Jester are still working together. That's the real shape of this engagement. It’s not a single project with a clear end date but a lasting partnership that has found its rhythm. Jester knows the CDA brand, understands the team, and has earned a place in the CDA's creative toolkit for the campaigns, productions, and digital work that matters.
Trust isn't pitched. It's built. One campaign at a time.
✦ CARRYING THINGS FORWARD WITH AN AI LENS
These days, a long-term partnership like this one compounds differently with AI in the mix. A shared bilingual brand voice model, built collaboratively and refined across every engagement, means both teams are always working from the same creative baseline, regardless of who's producing a given piece. The anniversary interview archive becomes a content pipeline the CDA's team can draw on for member stories, advocacy materials, and future conference content. And as the website matures, AI-assisted performance analysis would surface which pages and content patterns are actually driving results, giving the internal team clearer direction on where to focus next.
Ready to lead with clarity?
45 minutes. No pitch deck. Just a conversation about where you are and where you want to go.