Themed around the idea that ‘Greatness Is Rare’, a new brand platform by the Canadian Paralympic Association aims to generate support and boost viewing around the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games through a series of visually stunning spots.
The campaign’s objective is not just to forge closer connections between Canadians’ love for winter sports and the achievements of the country’s Paralympians at the PyeongChang Paralympics (which run from 9 to 118 March) through creative that is breathtaking, bleak and beautiful, but also to counterbalance the lack of Paralympic TV coverage by urging fans to watch on their own personal social channels.
The campaign debuted on 8 Feb with a lead spot starring wheelchair curling gold medallist Ina Forrest on an ice floe in a landscape.
The video states that 0.97 percent of Canadians curl (that’s 360,000-plus), but only 0.00001067 do it in a wheelchair and win back-to-back gold medals.
This introductory ad was followed by a further set of frosty and frozen films with similar statistics.
10 February saw the debut of a spot featuring Alpine skier Mac Marcoux,
followed the next day by a spot starring sled hockey player and team captain Greg Westlake.
These individual para-athlete ads were then supported by a further spot starring Forrest, Marcoux and Westlake which argues that ‘Greatness Deserves To Be Seen’ and invites users to visit the campaign’s online hub at https://greatnessisrare.ca and broadcast the Paralympics from their social platforms.
Indeed, this microsite enables fans to select the specific events they wish to broadcast and then these competitions are automatically posted to their personal Facebook or Twitter feeds.
The #PyeongChang Paralympic Games as set to start soon. This will get your blood pumping and ready for Game day. #greatnessisrare pic.twitter.com/mQqnU2FJOa
— CDN Paralympic Team (@CDNParalympics) March 8, 2018
A further, supporting behind-the-scenes spot was launched on 8 March about the frosty filming of the campaign.
The films are all, as usual with Canadian creative are dual language,
and were created by agency BBDO Toronto and by production house Asymetric.
Indeed, the BBDO/Asymetric crew braved fairly brutal conditions in the distinctly icy Yukon Territory and in northern British Columbia where temperatures dipped to 20 below.
“We fell in love with the locations because they provided a nice visual metaphor for our athletes: tough, isolated and rare,” explained agency associate creative director Matt Hubbard. “Our athletes needed battery-heated clothing, lenses froze to cameras and our drone refused to fly. The heated seats in our rental truck became our new best friends.”
Hubbard also added that, despite training just as hard or having athlete achievements just as great, the Paralympic Games have historically been overshadowed by those other games.
“Unfortunately, this has also meant less media coverage. Which means fewer Canadians watching and supporting athletes,” continued Hubbard.
“The idea of ‘Becoming a Broadcaster’ uses the power of social sharing to ensure as many Canadians as possible can witness greatness.”
The stark spots themselves were directed by Kacper Larski in his typical cinematic cool creative style.
The background behind the campaign and its strategy is that, despite the record-smashing ‘international’ audience statistics for the 2016 Paralympics in Rio, in Canada para-athletes have largely continued to struggle to make any serious inroads into television ratings and marketability.
“Coming back from the Rio Paralympics, the one thing that didn’t work is that we didn’t increase viewership of coverage of the Paralympic Games, which was obviously something that we wanted to expand on,” said Martin Richard, the executive director of brand and communications for the Canadian Paralympic Committee
“According to our survey, 60% of Canadians want to watch the Paralympics on any type of platform, whether it’s traditional TV or online streaming. That’s a big chunk right there. That’s over 10 million. But our audience viewership rating is quite lower. We’ve got an audience that’s off the couch and active, but we didn’t get them to learn more about our athletes.”
Comment:
Brrrr….the Activative team started to get chilly just looking at this creative and our fingers and toes starting to get a little numb analysing the campaign.
It’s more than a touch #Game Of Thrones’ #WinterIsComing.
The creative approach, the colour palette, the tone and rhythm of the work strands in complete contrast with, say, Channel 4’s colourful, warm and crowded award-winning work for the 2016 Paralympic Summer Games in Rio (see case study).
The campaign is also something of a thematic and objective contrast to the Canadian Olympic Association’s own Winter Games 2018 brand platform #BeOlympic (see case study).
It seems that the struggle for Paralympic recognition and exposure in Canada is not new and we feel that this campaign starkly and smartly starts the creative focus on the athletes, before shifting it to the lack of public awareness and paucity of broadcast coverage.
All while paying an icy homage to Canada’s harsh northern landscapes.
The Paralympics can be a powerful vehicle to shift societal perceptions of disability and to inspire a nation – particularly young people (see Virgin Media’s research piece around its new BPA partnership).
These unique, personal and powerful stories can prove to be key selling points to drive change – both in terms of consumers and sponsors.
Alongside the Canadian Paralympic Committee’s own campaign, one of its key sponsors Pfizer Canada is running a dual language series of functional digital/social spots (with brand synergy) under the title ‘Health and Wellness Series Presented by Pfizer’, including videos with Alana Ramsay,
Mac Marcoux,
Greg Westlake,
Dominic Larocque,
Alex Massie,
and Curt Minard
Links:
Canadian Paralympic Committee
https://www.greatnessisrare.ca/en
https://www.youtube.com/user/CDNParalympics
https://twitter.com/CDNParalympics
https://www.facebook.com/CDNParalympics
https://www.instagram.com/CDNParalympics/
BBDO Toronto
Pfizer Canada
