To mark the one year to go countdown to the start of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games (again), the organizing committee and rights owner launched a new campaign on 24 August called ‘Wait For The Greats’.
The initiative started with a social media spot that opens with a blank, black screen set to 100m commentary to offer a first-person taste of the experience of being a vision-impaired sprinter David Brown, before featuring edited footage of para-athletes from nations around the world celebrating their success.
For the first 17 seconds, the viewer experiences the world as Brown did during the men’s 100 metres T11 final in Rio – the crowd noise, the guide runner advice and in-race commentary from Jerome Averys – while the screen remains almost totally black to give viewers an idea of the extent of vision impairment experienced by T11 competitors.
Brown is the fastest fully blind sprinter in the world who runs the 100 metres in under 11 seconds and competed at both the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Paralympics.
There was also an audio described version for people with a vision impairment and a subtitled version for those who are deaf or hard of hearing.
As well as running across the IPC’s digital and social platforms, the ad ran on television in the UK and US on Paralympic broadcasters Channel 4 and NBC.
The caampaign, the first Paralympics work created by Adam&EveDDB since its appointment by the IPC in 2019, aims is to build excitement ahead of the Games and to remind viewers of the International Paralympic Committee’s vision is to make a more inclusive world through para sport.
The work is the agency’s response to an IPC brief to help continue its mission to showcase how Para sport is transforming the lives of persons with disabilities and to find another way to continue the momentum and keep the spotlight on para athletes despite the Games’ postponement from 2020 to 2021.
Craig Spence, chief brand and communications officer at IPC, commented: “Faced with unique circumstances and a historic first postponement of the Paralympic Games, we have a Groundhog Day scenario whereby we are once again celebrating one year to go until the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. To mark the occasion, maintain interest in the Games and generate excitement for next year we wanted an impactful global campaign that would appeal to Paralympic Games rights-holders and sport fans around the world. We are hugely grateful to adam&eveDDB for their creativity in developing the ‘Wait for the Greats’ campaign, which we will now roll out across multiple channels in more than 180 countries with the support of our National Paralympic Committees around the world.”
The campaign was created for IPC Chief Brand & Communications Officer Craig Spence and Head of Brand and Engagement Natalia Dannenberg-Spreier, by a team at Adam&EveDDB which included Chief Creative Officer Richard Brim, Creative Directors Laura Rogers and Andre Sallowicz, Creative Edd Gold, Agency Producer Charles Woodall, Planner John Blight, Head of Planning Milla McPhee, Global Brand Director Polly Dedman, Account Manager Andy Billman, Business Affairs Executive Klaudia Jozwicka, Designer Andre Sallowicz and Producer Charles Woodall.
Editing was handled by Marshall Street Editors with Editor Guy Savin, Edit Producer SJ O’Mara, with Post Production by ETC, Audio Post Production by Factory and a soundtrack by composer Daniel Pemberton.
Comment:
This approach of trying to recreate the sporting experience from the perspective/point of view of a para athlete has certainly been effective in the past.
Perhaps the stand-out example of this approach was Toyota’s award winning ‘See Like Menna’ Instagram based activation around the 2018 Winter Games: a social campaign built around visually impaired Paralympic Skier Menna Fitzpatrick (case study).
The new IPC spot rolls out during the same launch window as the new Netflix ‘Rising Phoenix’ movie about the Paralympic Movement.
Premiering in more than 190 countries worldwide, the film was originally slated to debut during Tokyo 2020, but now form parts of the celebrations (and marketing) leading up to the Paralympic Games in 2021.
It tells the story of the Games from its origins at the end of WW2 to becoming one of the biggest sporting events in the world.
Links:
International Paralympic Committee / Paralympics
https://www.youtube.com/user/ParalympicSportTV
https://www.facebook.com/paralympics
https://twitter.com/Paralympics
https://www.instagram.com/Paralympics/
Adam&EveDDB
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