As CoViD-19 shut us up in our homes and shut down much of the world’s entertainment, a major sector hit was sport - catastrophic when you consider the inspirational and unifying quality sport has on humanity. But when we needed it most, our campaign gave people an incredible dose of hope through Caitlin Rooskrantz’s story. And by live-streaming the event, we gave people the chance to see something they’d been told they couldn’t – the performance of an Olympic hopeful. And they did not miss that chance, responding real-time to this demonstration of humanity’s will to find a way.

On the 23rd of March, 2020, South Africa joined the host of myriad other countries and entered a hard lockdown. Next came rumours that the next event and sporting casualty of the pandemic would be the Tokyo Olympic Games. It was in this dismal context that Sanlam aimed to launch a message that encouraged people to hope, with a story that inspired it.

To launch our new brand platform, Now is the time to plan, Sanlam told the inspirational story of a South African Olympic hopeful. When the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games were cancelled, Sanlam introduced the world to Caitlin Rooskrantz and the new plan we had given her. And on the 2nd of August, 2020, 10am, the exact date and time she would have performed in Tokyo, we made her the only Olympian to perform in 2020.

As the pandemic trapped us in our homes for weeks then months on end, Sanlam wanted to encourage people not to abandon their dreams, instead refocusing them. If the old plan had gone out the window, what was needed, what we wanted to inspire people to, were new plans. This strategy laddered down from the financial human truth that dreams only stand a hope of becoming reality when you actively take steps to achieve them.

The creative execution stemmed from this in that we found a story that had one of two endings waiting: either a young Olympian would sit back and watch years of preparation pass without the world getting the chance to see her perform a routine that analysts had tapped for a gold in Tokyo, or she would need another plan to make that dream come true.

In the lead-up to what would have been the Tokyo Olympic Games, 2020 we used social to start telling Caitlin Rooskrantz’s story.

As the campaign progressed, everything embraced CoViD-19 protocols. We organised ppe of our athlete and her training spaces for her to get in shape to perform. We had to source a location akin to the spectacle of an Olympic stadium, but without a single seated spectator.

When the day arrived we streamed the event on Facebook Premier and all socials – a sporting press starved for any story other than ‘cancelled’, discovered an Olympic athlete and her inspiring story. We then facilitated remote interviews with media networks across Africa. Social distancing and remote viewing weren’t hurdles for the Olympian campaign, they were at its core.

A Reach of 184+ million.

2 500 000+ Views

861 000+ Social Engagements.

130 000+ New Visitors to Site.