When C4 became the broadcaster of the Paralympics, only 14% of the population said they were looking forward to them, and 1 in 4 said they felt uncomfortable around disabled people. The Games themselves had traditionally been seen as a sideshow.

We needed to:

Cut through the indifference and create an atmosphere of excitement building up to the Games. Ensure people viewed the Paralympics as elite sport. Tackle the discomfort people felt around seeing disabled people.

In order to achieve these objectives, and our own ambition to make the Games massive, we devised a strategy that:

• Had scale

• Had elite sport at the heart of it

• Had plenty of attitude

• Didn’t shy away from disability

• Had both spectacle and intimacy

• Had a uniquely Channel 4 approach

So we developed a campaign designed to have multiple touchpoints and layers to tell the story of the Paralympics to our broad audience, and ensure the widest appeal.

‘Meet the Superhumans’ was preceded by a series of 28 films called the Real Paralympians.

This series of spots were designed to serve as a counterbalance to the grandeur, spectacle and exhilaration of ‘Meet the Superhumans’.

These were the stories of individual athletes and teams that were intimate, personal and served to humanise our athletes. Designed not to evoke admiration and respect, but relatability and likability, they were an important part of making people care about the Games, and provide a context to the main spot.

As the Olympics came to a close, we launched a poster campaign that had all the scale, attitude and swagger of Meet the Superhumans. “Thanks for the Warm-Up”, a simple, talkable idea reminded people that the Games were far from over. The ad appeared in a national poster campaign, but also tactically in papers around news of the Olympic closing ceremony.

Against a background of indifference towards the Paralympics, our campaign helped create an atmosphere of excitement building up to the Games that was unprecedented.

TV coverage peaked at 11.6m for the opening ceremony- Channel 4’s biggest TV audience in over 10 years, and The Paralympics sold out for the first time ever.

• 56% of viewers felt Channel 4’s coverage of the Paralympics made them more comfortable talking about disabilities. Amongst 12-16’s that figure rose to 74%.

• 64% of viewers agreed they felt more positive towards disabled people as a result of watching Channel 4’s coverage of the Paralympics.

• 79% of adults who had watched coverage of the Paralympics agreed that they were as good as the Olympics.

• 85% of those who saw Channel 4’s marketing of the Paralympics thought that disabled athletes are as talented as able-bodied athletes.

• In an interesting sign of the times, Public Enemy who’s track ‘Harder than you Think’ was used on Superhumans, recut their music video to include footage of disabled athletes from our ad. It also became their first Top 10 single in the UK and their highest-charting single ever in the nation.