| Title | DARE TO PLAY? |
| Brand | SPECIAL OLYMPICS |
| Product/Service | PLAY UNIFIED |
| Category |
H01. Integrated Multi-Platform Campaign (Online & Offline) |
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Entrant
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LDV UNITED Antwerp, BELGIUM
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Idea Creation
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LDV UNITED Antwerp, BELGIUM
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Media Placement
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LDV UNITED Antwerp, BELGIUM
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PR
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WAVEMAKERS Waasmunster, BELGIUM
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Production
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LUCIFER FILMS Tervuren, BELGIUM
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Credits
| Dennis Vandewalle |
LDV United |
Copywriter |
| Dries De Bruyn |
LDV United |
Art Director |
| Kristof Snels |
LDV United |
Creative Director |
| Jilze Gerritsen |
LDV United |
Account Manager |
| Tomas Sweertvaegher |
LDV United |
Strategic Director |
| 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
What would draw enough attention to introduce, explain and establish Play Unified in one go? What would make people engage themselves?
We decided to reach out to sports heroes of today. But we didn’t ask them for help or their money, we didn’t take a humble position against these ‘Giants’, or ask for their sympathy vote. To the contrary, we turned the roles upside down: we let six unknown athletes with a mental disability boldly challenge today’s 7 biggest Belgian sport, still more, we implied they wouldn't dare to take on the challenges.
In this way, these six mentally disabled athletes didn’t just challenge seven sport heroes, they challenged the way the world looks at them.
Guess what? All challenges were accepted.
Creative Execution
It all started with 6 challenges, executed in 4 outdoor stunts and 2 online videos. All the athletes shared their challenge. The public was charmed by the boldness of the special athletes and pressured their heroes to participate. Within 24 hours all 7 athletes accepted the challenge and we had managed to explain the concept of #playunified to the Belgian people.
In the next months we kept the conversation going, by creating new stunts to get attention (for example, national coach of the Red Devils called 8 unknown special athletes at the official press conference, we created a gigantic tifo in Anderlecht’s football arena) and by making a media highlight of every Unified Game. With each game played, #playunified generated more content, more people were talking about it and got convinced to participate.Thanks to social media reach of our sports heroes, everyone could experience what Playing Unified was really about.
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 national 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, but 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.
We needed to reach everyone who plays sports in Belgium. With no media budget and very little owned reach, the smartest way to engage our audience was through their own sports heroes. We challenged not one, but seven top athletes. We needed their media reach to amplify our message and set an example for a whole nation. We reached them with bold messages, triggering social sharing. Once they did, the public had a front row seat: we hoped they would join us in pressuring the athletes to accept the challenge.
Next we needed to convince the Belgians to participate. Once, we had created a stage, we created new stunts to get the spotlight when it mattered most: at the actual games. So everyone could see and experience the joy of Playing Unified, through social media eyes of their sports heroes. That's when we activated them to sign up at playunified.be