Late August saw Sport England launch ’We Are Undefeatable’: a new TV led initiative created in collaboration with 15 charities that aims to inspire and support people with long-term illnesses by driving awareness of the positive benefits of physical activity.
The integrated campaign, which was reported to be worth around £3m and was planned by media agency Manning Gottlieb OMD, spans TV, radio, social media and a new website with content encouraging viewers to follow the hashtag #WeAreUndefeatable for inspiration and ideas on how to get active in ways that suit them.
It is led by a spearhead TV commercial consisting of an emotionally powerful montage of real people who suffer from long-term health conditions taking part in various athletic activities to stay fit.
The lead spot, which set to a cover of Sinatra’s classic ‘That’s Life’, features a young woman in a wheelchair who doesn’t allow her legs to prevent her from dancing, a girl with respiratory problems heading out for a jog, a team of old men playing touch football and an elderly gentleman working out at a playground gym.
The footage is interspersed with little clues highlighting their various illnesses: including one a card reading ‘straight out of chemo’ and another sees a man injecting himself with insulin.
The main message is simple: to show that there are many different ways of staying active which don’t involve doing ‘exercise’ in a traditional gym.
The ‘We Are Undefeatable’ campaign also includes a set of 14 films on social media which all give an honest and candid insight into the individual lives of real people suffering from health conditions.
These are essentially mini-documentaries which use self-filmed footage to give viewers a real view of their experiences in a raw, honest way.
The bespoke website offers a set of resources to help people become active in whichever way works for them, while ‘We Are Undefeatable’ support packs are also distributed to every GP surgery and community pharmacy in England as part of a wider programme to support healthcare professionals to promote physical activity to their patients.
After extensive consultation with several focus groups, Sport England and FCB Inferno developed the ‘We Are Undefeatable’ tagline based on a key insight – that regardless of their condition, the target audience had good days and bad ones, and these are unpredictable so we needed a line that encouraged our audience in their high moments and through their lows. By underlining the ‘able’ in ‘undefeatable’, the aim is to show that the ability of sufferers to keep on going.
Among the 15 charities that worked on the project are the Alzheimer’s Society, Asthma UK, British Red Cross, Diabetes UK, the MS Society and Mind.
The campaign was created by agency FCB Inferno with a team that included Chief Creative Officer Owen Lee, Creative Partner Al Young, Creative Director Sarah Lefkowith, Creative Director Nicole Chen, Executive Vice President Sharon Jiggins Senior, Account Director Lucy Turner, Senior Account Manager Lara Ashman, Strategy Director Tom Lindo, Strategist Imogen Armstrong, Broadcast Producer Hanna Davis, Director of Innovation Laura Visick, Broadcast and Content Business Affairs Caio Silva, Design Leads Becci Salmon and Sarni Strachan, Head of Creative Production Mike Jenkins Creative, Producer Clare Dyer, Retoucher Rich Bagley, Associate Director Communications and Influencer Marketing Sami Westwood, plus junior copywriter Josie Beaumont and junior art director Sarah Bignell.
The photography was by Swerve Represents and the photographer was Sophie Harris-Taylor, Framestore credits include Main Film, Colourist Simon Bourne and Jessica Vile, Flame Jason Farrow and Ally Burnett and Producer Sian Jenkins.
The films were created at Knucklehead by Director JJ Augustavo, Producer Francis Mildmay-White, Production Manager Cat Irving, First Assistant Director Benji Edwards, DOP Luke Jacobs, 2nd Unit Camera Tommy McMahon, Art Director Fred Cassavetti, Wardrobe Melanie Mildmay-White, Casting Directors Kharmel Cochrane (London), Martin Gibbons (Manchester) and Jordan Maxwell, Second Unit Directors Joachim Benzimra and Jordan Maxwell.
Music and sound was by Soundtree with music arranged by Luis Almau, sound design and mix by Henning Knoepfel at Soundtree and Producer Soundtree Jay James.
Trim credits include Editors Vid Price Assistant and Jacques Simon, Producer Polly Kemp and editors Vid Price, Jacques Simon, Magda Plugowska, Edward Hanbury, Joey Henshaw and Lorna Searl.
Sport England’ CEO Tim Hollingsworth says the initiative is one phase of a longer-term drive by the government body to change cultural and social norms around long-term health conditions and physical activity.
Sport England will re-run its research study in late October and November and track cross-sections of consumers for six months to measure whether there has been a shift in audience perceptions and behaviours.
Comment:
This campaign, which launched a year ahead of the start of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, is uplifting and yet takes a nuanced approach. It is both honest and funny and feels like a genuinely human piece of work.
and rides on the success of Sport England’s long-running, successful and multi-award winning ‘This Girl Can’ campaign which ran through several phases including November 2014 (see case study), January 2015 (see case study), February 2017 (see case study)and October 2018 (see case study).
The campaign was informed by Sport England 2017 research which found that people living with long-term health conditions are twice as likely to be inactive: 42% of disabled people were found to be inactive versus only 24% of non-disabled people.
This was then explored further through a later, more specific study of more than 1,000 adults in the UK which found that people with long-standing health concerns felt they face some unique barriers: 1/3rd cited a lack of energy holds them back. It also found 69% of the 15 million UK citizens who suffer from a long-term health condition, 1/4 said they would like to be more active.
Links:
Sport England
https://www.youtube.com/user/thisgirlcanuk
https://www.facebook.com/pages/This-Girl-Can/1486200494975441?ref=profile
https://plus.google.com/106091288943299282651/videos
https://twitter.com/ThisGirlCanUK
#ThisGirlCan
http://instagram.com/thisgirlcanuk
FCB
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