Since people don’t consider Paralympians to be “real” athletes, we challenged this perception by literally challenging them. Instead of simply showing Canadians how hard Paralympians train, we challenged them to keep up with their workout routines online. And because the at-home workout genre is huge right now, we created the hardest, most impossible follow-along workout series ever: one led entirely by Canadian Paralympians.

The online campaign launched on July 14th, 2016, almost two months before the Games began on August 8th. Throughout August and September, hundreds of thousands of dollars’ of donated TV commercials ran to promote the series, supported by out of home and print. We also ran an influencer program, getting hundreds of fitness influencers to try the workouts and talk about them online. Finally, paid social media ads on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram linked directly back to ParaTough.com where anyone could try the workouts for free.

The campaign immediately got people talking, commenting and sharing, with almost 15,000 people engaging with our social posts. Over 45,000 people tried the workouts at ParaTough.com, and on average users spent about 7 minutes on the site. We received many requests to continue the series and countless posts where people expressed their admiration for the Paralympians. Most importantly, Paralympic viewership broke Canadian records, with a 208% increase from the London 2012 Paralympic Games.