Title	DARE TO PLAY?
Brand	SPECIAL OLYMPICS
Product/Service	PLAY UNIFIED
Category	D03. Launch / Re-launch
Entrant	LDV UNITED Antwerp, BELGIUM
Idea Creation	LDV UNITED Antwerp, BELGIUM
Media Placement	LDV UNITED Antwerp, BELGIUM
PR	WAVEMAKERS Waasmunster, BELGIUM
Production	LUCIFER FILMS Tervuren, BELGIUM

Name	Company	Position
Tomas Sweertvaegher	LDV United	Strategic Director
Dennis Vandewalle	LDV United	Copywriter
Dries De Bruyn	LDV United	Art Director
Kristof Snels	LDV United	Creative Director
Jilze Gerritsen	LDV United	Account Manager
Eline Goethals	LDV United	Strategic Planner
Kevin Wittevrongel	LDV United	Strategic Planner
Dimitri Mundorff	LDV United	Head of Account
Zehra Sayin	Special Olympics Belgium	Co-CEO
Inge De Roeck	Special Olympics Belgium	Communicatie medewerker
Catalina Daniëls	Special Olympics Belgium	Co-CEO
Innie Tran	LDV United	Account Executive
Jeffrey Uten	LDV United	Brand Designer
Kurt De Leijer	Lucifer Films	Director
Dirk Leunis	Dirk Leunis photography	Photographer
Nick Gorrebeeck	LDV United	Digital Producer
Petra De Roos	LDV United	Managing Director

The Campaign

OVERCOMING A TOUGH CHALLENGE BY CHALLENGING SPORT HEROES How could we introduce and establish Play Unified in one go? We decided to let six unknown Special Olympians challenge the 7 Belgian sports heroes to Play Unified. Not by asking them to help us, but by challenging them to do what they do best. Winning the game. In stead of taking a humble position against these Giants, we turned the roles upside down. Our Special Olympians took the high road, and implied their opponents wouldn’t have the courage to do so. Because, we all know there’s only one certainty when it comes to making sure an athlete does something: by saying he doesn’t have the guts to do it. Guess what? All challenges were accepted.

Creative Execution

It all started with 6 personal and bold challenges, executed in 4 outdoor prints and 2 online videos. After the challenge, we pressured them via different social media channels to take on the challenge. The public and important influencers joined us. So within 24 hours all 7 athletes accepted the challenge. But more importantly, we got the attention of the whole Belgian sportive community. In the next months we kept the conversation going, by making a media highlight of every Unified Game. Through the media reach of our famous athletes Belgians could see what Playing Unified was about. And during the whole campaign we created new opportunities to gain traffic to our website and convince sports club to play a Unified Game themselves. For example, we stunted when the coach of the Belgian Red called 8 extra players (Special Olympians) at the official press conference for the national selection.

Results

What started with 7 challenges managed to create a dialogue between thousands of people, with a social reach of 25 million. Belgian television, national radio and every big online and offline newspaper covered the remarkable challenges. In all, this led to 55 million impressions, leading up to 3 million earned media in the course of two months. We managed to get #playunified in the spotlight and keep it there for over two months. People didn’t see our message once or twice, four or five times. But the biggest victory was when we got the attention of the national sports Federations (football, bowling, tennis, badminton). Thanks to these partnerships, we changed the course of #playunified in Belgium, and hundreds of clubs and thousands of athletes will discover the joy of Playing Unified. Thus achieving our most important victory: the one of social inclusion of mentally disabled athletes through sports.

To launch Play Unified in Belgium, we let six mentally disabled athletes (Special Olympians) personally challenge 7 Belgian famous athletes. We reached the athletes with our challenge on their turf: on their training route, in the swimming pool, on the race track and on the tennis court. The requests were so bold that every athlete shared it. In the next hours, important influencers and the public joined the conversation, and pressured the athletes to take on the challenge. They became hot topic on social media overnight. Result: within 24 hours all 7 athletes accepted the challenge.That was just the beginning.

We wanted to reach all people who play sports in Belgium. We had to do it with no media budget and very little owned reach. The easiest way to reach our audience is through their own sportS heroes. So we challenged not one, but seven top athletes. We needed their media reach to amplify our message to all sports lovers. After we informed the public, we needed to convince them to Play Unified. That was the power of these public challenges. They did not only inform people about Play Unified, they also showed our audience what Play Unified is about, in not one but seven fields of sport. We didn’t need to tell the audience how fun it is to Play Unified, they could see it for themselves. We guided everyone to sign up at playunified.be and Play Unified themselves.