2016 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

The Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) was responsible for hosting the Doha 2015 IPC Athletics World Championships. This was to be the largest-ever para-sport event to come to the Middle East – but how could the host city engage a nation where little is understood about disability, let alone para-sport. With a mandate to support the global development of sport and a host of global stakeholders to impress in the IPC and IOC (International Olympic Committee), QOC needed to generate excitement about the World Championship and use it to raise awareness of para-sport and disability. We knew the most powerful asset in engaging new audiences were the athletes’ inspirational stories of triumph over adversity. We tapped into this to create a campaign around these #BeyondIncredible humans. Central to the campaign was our ‘My Incredible Story’ video series which featured five awe-inspiring films that tell the stories of athletes from around the region and the world. Filming and production was done in house with the support of our global network. The campaign was rolled out on existing IPC social media channels in the two months ahead of the World Championships and shared by athletes, bloggers, sponsors and stakeholders. For a low-profile sport globally but particularly locally, the results were … incredible • Almost 7 million video views • Average Facebook likes per post: 4,475 vs. 206 for posts outside our campaign • 24% increase in Twitter followers; 16% increase in Facebook fans No big budgets, elaborate scripts or fancy production; just powerful storytelling at its best.

The Brief

- Use the World Championships as a tool to engage the community and increase awareness about para-sport and disability locally and regionally. - Generate excitement about the World Championships locally, regionally and internationally. - Position QOC as pro-active in supporting the development of sport on a global level by raising awareness of para-sport and bringing it to new audiences.

Execution

To elevate the campaign internationally our Middle East team worked with our network offices to manage the filming of the athletes and generate coverage of the films and the athletes in their home market. It was important that our choice of para-athletes represented an eclectic mix of stories, backgrounds, cultures and personalities, all united by that ever-present human factor: determination. All idea conception, recording and script production was done in-house. We also created multi-lingual versions to reach both local and international audiences. We created fives videos in total under the campaign name ‘My Incredible Story’ and staggered the releases in the months leading up to the World Championships’ Opening Ceremony. What was special about this was the fact that it allowed the athletes to build anticipation and smash preconceptions themselves. We merely gave them the means and the platform to do this. Simple, great storytelling at its best.

Over a two-month period (10th September – 31st October) we reached millions of people around the world, drove conversation around para-sport and attracted followers to the IPC Athletics social platforms. • Total number of film views across all channels: 6,711,717 • Average no. of Facebook likes for #MyIncredibleStory video: 4,475 vs 206 for a non-campaign video • Twitter followers for @IPCAthletics: 24% increase • Twitter impressions: 1,127,749 • Facebook page likes: 16% increase • Facebook post engagements: 372,433 Views of our videos alone were approximate to the total reach of the entire digital campaign of the IPC Athletics World Championships in Lyon, 2013 - just one year after the success of the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

The Strategy

We knew that while the world may know little about the event, the stories of the para-athletes and how they got to where they are today spoke a universal language. These athletes have overcome adversity, serious physical and mental barriers to compete on the world stage and those stories of incredible human achievement are an inspiration no matter who you are. Our strategy was to harness the power of these incredible stories to raise awareness of the IPC Athletics World Championships and of disability sport. We researched a plethora of inspiring stories from the world’s best para-athletes with a view to rolling out a series of films across the IPC Athletics’ social media channels. No elaborate scripts or big production costs, just inspiring real life accounts of human stories. Success would be measured through social media engagement and follower growth.