Ability Signs, a global program that aims to change how we see people living with disabilities, started on the largest untapped medium of Decathlon’s brand ecosystem: its premises and POP space. As the largest sports retailer in the world, Decathlon is committed to making sports more accessible to the many. Given the brand’s philosophical inclination to use grassroots initiatives and brand acts over ads, this initiative made a strategic and creative use of on-premise real estate to tell its story of sports accessibility. The program was then amplified around the world through organic and PR efforts.

Decathlon is the largest sports retailer in the world. And since its inception in 1976, the brand's purpose has been to make the benefits of sports accessible to everyone. Over the years, Decathlon has built its success through affordable prices, innovative products, passionate employees, and experiential stores.

However, despite its iconic status internationally, Decathlon has remained a relatively unknown player in North America, where a legion of legacy sports retailers dominate the landscape. As the brand was about to open its tenth store in Canada in 2021, it wanted to boost its fame while making its commitment to the democratization of sport known and renowned.

The challenge: breakthrough from a cluttered space with a fraction of the share of voice in the category, while staying true to Decathlon’s culture/philosophy of favoring grassroots over ‘advertisy’ initiatives.

As Décathlon was designing and building its new flagship store (obviously ensuring universal access), the team’s attention honed in on the universal access symbol, which depicts a person in a wheelchair. That’s when we decided to reinterpret it as a symbol of empowerment.

We created Ability Signs: to change the way we look at people with disabilities, we've reimagined the universal accessibility symbol to spotlight what they can do rather than what they can't. We designed 25 custom symbols representing different sports (tennis, volleyball, hockey, archery, etc.).

We not only deployed the symbols in Décathlon’s parking lots and in-store signage, but we also created a whole program around it. We made our symbols freely available to everyone on our website under the Creative Commons license, and invited ally sports organizations (and even our retail competition) to rally around the initiative.

To really break through, we needed to find a powerful yet cost-effective idea that reflected our mission to make sports more accessible, while leveraging amplification to outperform our media investment. The initiative needed to tap into a strong cultural tension regarding sports accessibility.

And while Décathlon was building its brand new flagship store in Montréal, a topic was increasingly making the rounds in the local news cycle: limited accessibility around the city for people with disabilities.

Disabilities still remain the ultimate frontier for inclusivity in sports. An overwhelming majority of people with disabilities aren’t active because most installations aren’t adapted, leagues and organizations are harder to find and disabled athletes don’t have much exposure outside of the Paralympic Games. All to show that representation matters.

This highlighted a need directly tied to our brand purpose. We therefore set out to awaken the public consciousness about disabilities and sports.

Using Decathlon’s existing signage system and iconic blue brand color, we developed 25 custom symbols representing a variety of para-sports. By simply adding sport items and accessories to a universally known icon, we told a completely different story: one that showcases all that people with disabilities can do, not their limitations.

Launched in October 2021 the campaign included the following efforts:

Usage of the symbols in Décathlon’s local facilities (signage, parking lot, etc.).

A launch video deployed on the brand's social platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter).

A website (abilitysigns.ca) explaining the initiative and proposing free downloads.

Some targeted OOH around stores.

A suite of Giphy stickers to let people alter the accessibility icons virtually on Instagram.

An integration into the company's newsletter, which reaches thousands of brand followers.

A PR campaign targeting the sports and news media, as well as some influential personalities from the sports world.

The campaign was an instant hit, boasting 200M+ organic impressions online, 430% increase in brand mentions and more than 20K icons downloads, becoming the brand’s most shared social campaign ever. In the real world, the impact exceeded expectations as well. Ability Signs allowed Décathlon to build bridges with many accessibility associations and dozens of rec centers and gyms. The initiative was endorsed by pro teams such as Paris St-Germain and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The city of Montréal co-opted the program for some parks signage while the city of Paris used it to create new accessible parking spaces near sport facilities. Amazingly, the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games announced that it would also use the symbols.

This contributed to an increase in brand awareness, sentiment and sales (11% YOY) in Canada. What started out as a local initiative was ultimately adopted by all of Décathlon (including at its headquarters in France).

What better touchpoint than a brand’s owned, permanent touchpoints to tell a story and live up to its purpose on an ongoing basis? This initiative made good use of concrete, and permanent signage, real estate that exists in the public space, and that crosses the paths of clients (and citizens) on a daily basis.

Nothing specific to Canada, other than the fact that in 2021, the topic of universal accessibility was especially prevalent in the local news cycle. Many cities were under scrutiny in terms of accessibility.