Paralympians are arguably the most impressive and talented athletes in the world. Yet it wasn’t until Tokyo 2020 that the Paralympic Games were given prime time broadcast in Canada. The reality is, the Paralympic Games do not get the same attention and admiration as their Olympic counterparts. In fact, awareness of the Canadian Paralympic team was on the decline prior to this year’s games. Our challenge was to think beyond the under-aired Paralympic Games and find a unique way to drive inclusion of the para community in mainstream popular culture.

Objective: Move the para community from being in an unseen league of their own, to celebrating them with the same legitimacy as any high-performing human.

With a budget of only $26,000 (which went towards production), this program would not have the support of a mass media plan. We needed to earn the attention of Canadians. We needed free media.

Years of experience have shown that in changing the status quo, traction takes time. This caused us to think: perhaps rather than directly telling adults why they should care about the para community, what if we could capture their attention by demonstrating that inclusivity starts at a young age? Afterall, the perspectives of children today shape the status quo of the world tomorrow.

With no media budget, our strategy was to root the idea in this compelling insight, but target mass media outlets to earn the attention of all.

With that in mind, it struck us: while one of the world’s most beloved building toys has included figures representing emergency service workers, astronauts, and even science fiction characters, it has never truly reflected the para sport community. Until now.

Introducing The Para Expansion Pack: a new prototype to fit the world’s most beloved building toy. Expanding every set, for everyone.

The Para Expansion Pack consists of 20 custom designed pieces that perfectly fit the world’s most beloved building toy.

We used the iconic minifigure parts as a base and modified them to represent not only Paralympians, but anyone with a disability. The pieces include a short arm, shoulder, modified hand, short legs, walking stick, and prosthetic legs that can be seamlessly added to any existing minifigure.

The pack also includes adaptive parasport equipment with running blades, a blackout mask, racing wheelchair and basketball wheelchair. The wheels, axles, frames, chassis, and seating for the wheelchairs were custom designed to resemble the actual equipment and are also fully compatible with any existing set.

All 3D design files were shared with the public on our website, so anyone can customize, design, and print their own expansion pieces.

We showcased the pack in a short video for news outlets to share with the world.

The Para Expansion Pack was a gold medal success, celebrated across 30 unique news outlets and earning over 130,000 video views and 3,200 shares, including public admiration from athletes themselves. But this wasn’t just a Canadian win. The program was celebrated globally, with the site seeing visits and downloads from 49 countries. Even better, we saw over 10,000 downloads of various Para expansion items in the first two weeks alone. Bringing Para into popular culture and expanding the collections and perspectives of thousands of people, everywhere.

At the end of the day, people didn’t just watch and reflect. By sharing and downloading pieces for themselves, they made a conscious effort to include the para community in their lives.

The idea not only drove inclusivity of the para community, but also helped Paralympians gain the celebration and legitimacy they deserve, by simply treating them like… well, everyone else.