The idea to ask people to see the abilities, not the disabilities came from attending a regional Special Olympic competition – no matter if they won or lost in competition, the athletes were thrilled at what they personally accomplished. The insight that all the athletes joyfully threw-up their arms in triumph whether they won or lost translated to realizing the pride that came with just participating in the World Games – these were the best of the best in their world, and it was amazing what they accomplished.

We created the “Reach Up” pose and logo to embody their pride and to celebrate the athletes. Our idea was to ask Los Angeles residents and anyone who was associated with the games to Reach-Up for the athletes of the Special Olympics, and the athletes to Reach

We started with creating a new logo that embodied the “Reach Up” pose. It became the brand identity we used throughout all the advertising efforts. Then, across everything we executed, meetings, speeches, marketing material, social media, all contained the “Reach Up LA” tagline. “Reach Up LA” also inspired an original song written by Grammy Award winner Siedah Garret that became the featured music throughout the advertising and opening and closing ceremonies.

The games took place July 25th - August 2, 2015. Heavy media ran February through July 2015. $20 million in donated media included never before done signage throughout LAX, TV and Radio spots on all Los Angeles stations and ads in every major local newspaper, including the LA Times. This, combined with social media efforts, digital buys and the LA2015.org website helped achieve over five billion impressions in the market.

Advertising ran for 7 months and contributed to over $114 million in contributions, secured 111,721 volunteers, 62,338 people at opening ceremony, 247,247 spectators and $415 million in economic impact for Los Angeles. For the first time, the games were televised and ESPN broadcast them including the Opening Ceremony. Viewer interest prompted ESPN to extend coverage over the week-long event and aired footage of the Games in 170 countries. Plus, there were 1,728 credentialed news media at the games from 79 nations – a world games record. Overall, this amounted to an audience of 20 million viewers.

The global media coverage showcasing the skills and abilities of the Special Olympics athletes performing at the highest level directly impacted the vision to change people’s perceptions about the intellectually disabled and everyone, including First Lady Michelle Obama and Pope Francis “Reached Up.”