Ability beyond Disability.

Rio has been excellent for Team GB. However with their arrival back in the UK, it is time to get behind our Paralympians.

Roughly 12% of the Rio Paralympic tickets have been sold. This highlights how successful the London Paralympic games. Thankfully, 4creative have lead the way again in supporting the disabled with their new campaign. ‘We’re The Superhumans’.

To continue shifting the perceptions of disability, this year’s campaign (which is running alongside Channel 4’s Year of Disability) features a cast of more than 140 disabled people. Including Paralympic athletes, musicians and members of the public to take another step forward in changing the conversation around disability.  It works to widen the definition of ‘superhuman’ by featuring Paralympic athletes, alongside everyday people with disabilities going about their daily lives.

Expectations were high after the success of its first iteration. Channel 4 decided the new campaign should “not to try to be better but to try to be different.” Chief marketing and communications officer Dan Brooke.

The idea was to get a better representation of disability on screen that championed the everyday as well as the athlete. They had to align the tone of the ad with people’s perceptions of Brazil being colourful, warm and energetic.

It took a year for the ad to go from early concepts to creative development to shooting. Tasked with post-production, MPC created all the crowd scenes via 3D post-production. No an easy task given all the filming took place in empty stadiums.

“The campaign challenges you to forget what you think you know about disability. And it’s a huge celebration of ability beyond disability. Not in a cheesy way, but a real, visceral, beautiful, challenging, truthful way. And that’s exactly what we aimed for.” Alice Tonge, creative director at 4creative.

It isn’t just about getting people to watch the Paralympics. The campaign aims to alter the attitude on the whole, trying to change global perceptions of disability. As part of its ‘Year of Disability’ commitment to increase both on and off-screen representation of disabled people, the broadcaster’s line-up will feature the largest number of disabled presenters seen together on UK television. Nearly two-thirds of the broadcasting team will consist of disabled presenters such as Breaking Bad actor RJ Mitte, broadcaster Sophie Morgan and former marine commando JJ Chalmers.