Channel 4’s ‘Superhumans’ campaign was hugely influential, but a decade on, some disabled people pointed out we had inadvertently created a new disability stereotype: sports superhero. So when the brief is to positively shift public perception on disability, the most powerful thing we could do was rip our most iconic campaign in two. This year, instead of presenting the athletes as ‘super’, we wanted to show their human side: Super. Human. Across the campaign we reclaimed historically emotive, negative pieces of language and turned them into bold statements of excellence, once again reframing how the world sees Paralympians –

The Paralympic Games is a huge for Channel 4 – it is key for our remit of representing unheard

voices. The challenge this time was to retain the brand equity we have in ‘Superhumans’ but having listened to many journalists, commentators + disabled people, to reframe it in a way that didn’t ‘other’ disabled people further. And to drive viewing of a live sporting event with a 9 hour time difference!

Business objective: Drive viewing of the Paralympic Games on Channel 4. Cultural objective: continue to positively shift attitudes around disability, promoting inclusivity and societal progress. Comms objective: Reframe the iconic ‘Superhumans’ campaign thought, moving it away from perpetuating the new stereotype of ‘sports superhero’ and instead showing the human side of the athletes.

We created a campaign under the line ‘Super. Human.’ that explored the human side of the athletes. A film that told the emotional story of 4 years of life, training and the extreme mindset needed to get to the Games. Posters that demanded we honour that sacrifice and dedication. Social that went even deeper into the Paralympians' lives. We also made this our most accessible campaign to date.

This year, instead of just presenting the athletes as ‘super’, we wanted to show their human side: Super. Human. Across the campaign we reclaimed historically emotive, negative pieces of language and turned them into bold statements of excellence, with unifying visual treatments exploring humanity and imperfection.

Fri 16th July – 25th August 2021

Film:

TV/VOD

YouTube

All 4 Tokyo 2020 Paralympics microsite

Paid Facebook activity

Paid YouTube activity

Athletes’ & Partners’ Twitter accounts

OOH: nationwide

Press: The Sun / Metro papers

Tik-Tok: TikTok

Being such a unique UK public service broadcaster, our remit is always at the heart of everything we do. This means our objectives need to be focused on delivering against this locally and nationally first, in this case creating a nationwide buzz behind our Paralympians. However, with the event viewed globally, the impact of our work on the campaign stretched far across the world.

Our work on the Paralympics helped the channel’s coverage and supporting TV content reach 19.7 million people, that’s 32% of the entire UK TV population, plus 2.9 million views through the All4 platform. On top of this, a massive 81% of people were aware of the Tokyo games with over half of them citing our TV spot as the main source of awareness. All of this in the space of weeks.

It’s not easy to change the way a nation thinks and talks about disability. But over 57% of British adults now say that the Paralympics has made them more positive about what disabled people can achieve! That’s a shift in over half the country’s attitudes towards people with disabilities! We also started new conversations, with 43% of viewers talking to others about the issues raised.