Title	SPECIAL OLYMPICS - KEVIN DE BRUYNE
Brand	SPECIAL OLYMPICS BELGIUM
Product/Service	SPECIAL OLYMPIC SUMMER GAMES BELGIUM
Category	C08. Charities, Public Health, Safety & Awareness Messages
Entrant Company	LDV UNITED Antwerp, BELGIUM
Advertising Agency	LDV UNITED Antwerp, BELGIUM
Production Company	THE PICKLES PHOTOGRAPHY Anderlecht, BELGIUM

Name	Company	Position
Bart Gielen	Ldv United	Creative Director
Kristof Janssens	Ldv United	Planning Director
Petra De Roos	Ldv United	Managing Director
Thomas Thysens	Ldv United	Art Director
Ruben Van Maldeghem	Ldv United	Copywriter
Han Verschaeren	Ldv United	Art Director
Tine Bongaert	Ldv United	Copywriter
Jeffrey Uten	Ldv United	Designer
Eline Goethals	Ldv United	Strategic Planner
Niki Desiron	Ldv United	Motion Designer
Astrid Claus	Ldv United	Account Executive

Brief Explanation

1/10 Belgians knows someone with an intellectual disability. Nonetheless the Special Olympics are unknown and they’re often mixed up with the Paralympics. The 2014 Special Olympics took place in Antwerp (Belgium). Our goal was to raise awareness about athletes with intellectual inability. We needed to initiate the conversation and break the taboo. Our idea to do so: “A Great Performance Deserves a Great Audience.” If you train hard and become a professional athlete, you get a big audience. If you train really hard and succeed in swimming 50 meters, you also deserve a big audience.

Results and Effectiveness

One post, one thought-provoking portrait and a single controversial question, managed to start a dialogue between thousands of people. Within the first 24 hours our first post alone got 1.400 shares and more than 150.000 likes. All Belgian news channels covered Kevin’s remarkable social media move. National radio & TV and every big national newspaper published our portrait. All together, zero euros in paid media generated a stunning 4 million euros in earned media. This led to a sold out opening and closing ceremony and 5.000 supporters, every day. But most importantly, we gave these athletes the attention they deserve.

Creative Execution

We created a controversial portrait: we replaced the eyes of our Belgian football hero, Kevin de Bruyne with those of Christof Swaenepoel, a Belgian Special Olympian. We let Kevin share this portrait with his 1,7 million followers on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram asking the following question: “Would you still be a fan if I looked like this?” During 12h everybody wondered why Kevin had posted this peculiar portrait. Once all eyes were on us, Kevin reposted the portrait, claimed by the Special Olympics. That’s how we succeeded in getting massive media attention twice in only 24h without any media budget.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

How do you reach and engage thousands of people with almost no budget? With a smart strategy that is: so we asked the help of Kevin De Bruyne, a star player of the Belgian national football team. Since the 2014 Fifa World Cup in Brazil, the players of the Belgian national football team are not just regarded as sports heroes; they’re regarded as national heroes. Leaving Kevin to be the ambassador for an organisation as the Special Olympics. The strategy was simple: we would use Kevin De Bruyne’s fame and social media network to put Special Olympics in the spotlight.