Figs elevates nurse appreciation with I Am a Nurse campaign for ...

It’s National Nurses Week and you knew Figs had something lined up for this critical group of frontline healthcare workers.

While the calendar of days, weeks and months designed to raise awareness of diseases and recognize different healthcare professionals is crowded, Nurses Week has a long pedigree compared to some others. 

The first official Nurses Week took place 50 years ago and since then, May 6 to May 12 has been recognized as an annual appreciation period for nurses nationwide. 

Interestingly, the dates are not random: they were chosen so that the week ends on May 12, the day Florence Nightingale — the founder of modern nursing — was born in 1820.

Despite the history of Nurses Week stretching back decades, for many nurses the event is marked by, at best, a thank-you card and a pizza party. 

For all of the sacrifices made by nurses to care for patients, Figs knew these HCPs needed more. The company, which was founded in 2013 and sells scrubs and other products to HCPs, has long been determined to make Nurses Week a bigger event and is elevating the annual celebration with the recent launch of its I Am a Nurse campaign.

“At Figs, we call Nurses Week our Super Bowl,” Figs’ chief marketing officer Bene Eaton says. “It is our biggest, most exciting moment of the entire year. We celebrate the healthcare community 24/7, 365 — no question about that. When it comes to Nurses Week, however, every year we work to outdo ourselves with more activations and initiatives and to continue to drive unique stories that spotlight nurses.”

The focus of Figs’s Nurses Week initiative this year is a 30-second spot being released through the company’s digital channels along with portraits of 11 nurses who will also be showcased on billboards and other OOH advertising in Los Angeles and New York. 

The message of the video, which features the nurses who were the subjects of portraits, is that “Nursing is more than giving Tylenol, doing heavy lifting, a number and pizza parties. It’s about you and everything you do.”

The 11 nurses were chosen to reflect the varied composition of an especially diverse profession in terms of race and ethnicity, gender. Three of the 11 nurses are men and the oldest nurse in the campaign started her career in 1964 while the youngest began theirs in 2022. 

“The nursing community is such a beautiful tapestry of so many different people that come from so many different backgrounds and also have different specialties within nursing,” Eaton says. “When we set out to do this campaign, we wanted to cast a broad net to ensure that the nursing community was accurately represented.” 

In terms of specialties, the campaign includes NICU nurses, pediatric nurses, travel nurses, emergency room nurses, neurosurgery nurses, among others.

The elevation of nurses, often stereotyped as supporting players to doctors and specialists, into starring roles is at the heart of the campaign. 

“Part of our mission [at Figs] is to put HCPs on a pedestal and ensure that they’re seen and heard,” Eaton explains. “We see other brands do this with celebrities or athletes. Through this campaign, we hope that we also can inspire the world at large to get behind and champion nurses in the same way that we do.”

In addition to the film and portraits, Figs is also marking the week with a celebration in New York for the featured nurses and other ambassadors from the company’s pool of 400 HCPs. On Monday, the campaign’s 11 nurses rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street. 

“Our hope is that people everywhere will celebrate nurses in the way that they should be celebrated,” Eaton concludes. “We want to highlight their unique experiences, personalities, skills and all they bring to their work that enables them to connect with their patients in a meaningful way. I hope that this campaign paints a picture of nurses as full people.”

So, healthcare leaders of America, Figs has thrown down the gauntlet. 

You now have this week to figure out how you will celebrate the nurses in your life in a bigger and bolder way than a greeting card from CVS and pizza in the break room.