NBCUniversal’s goal was to raise awareness for the disability community, with a focus on helping to break down barriers and opening opportunities for this group.
The Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics presented a golden opportunity to promote this message, particularly since NBCU is the official broadcaster of the Summer Games.
To accomplish our goal, we partnered with the Challenged Athletes Foundation, a nonprofit committed to creating opportunities for individuals with physical disabilities to live full and active lives.
We offered the Challenged Athletes Foundation the opportunity to have a 30-second PSA created through NBCU’s Creative Impact Lab. The Lab is an award-winning program that provides grants to nonprofit creative agencies and commissions them to tell stories about other nonprofits, which serve as “clients” of the Lab. In this case, the Challenged Athletes Foundation was the client.
Venice Arts was given a grant by NBCU and selected as the nonprofit agency to bring this impactful story to life. Two NBC sports employees were selected to be volunteer creative advisors on the project.
Venice Arts has a noble mission itself: to ignite and transform the lives of Los Angeles’ low-income youth through storytelling across a variety of mediums. Their location in LA near para-athlete training facilities was also ideal and helped lead to the recruitment of Paralympian, Derek Loccident, to star in the PSA.
The spot began running in donated inventory across Comcast and NBCU’s media platforms 100 days out from the Paralympic Games and will continue to run through the Games.
This project was a true collaboration between all three parties of the Creative Impact Lab: Venice Arts and its apprentices, Challenged Athletes Foundation, and their NBCU creative advisors. Together, they honed a creative concept for a :30 PSA featuring Paralympian Derek Loccident and his incredible journey of triumph, made possible by the work CAF does to support para-athletes. Derek, originally a collegiate football player, faced a life-altering accident that severed his foot. He transitioned to track & field with a prosthetic leg provided by Össur and sports expense grant from CAF. He was determined to compete for a spot in Paris 2024 Paralympics. When the PSA was being filmed, Derek was a Team USA athlete and paralympic hopeful. He is now on his way to Paris to participate in the Paralympic games.
As part of the Lab programming that NBCUniversal provides, all Lab participants are coached on effective storytelling as part of their project kick-off. The CAF PSA put a key tenet into practice — centering the story on an individual who directly benefits from the work of the nonprofit organization, ensuring the message is emotionally resonant for viewers.
Derek shares his personal reflections on what we can do when adversity hits in the VO as we see compelling footage of his present-day (a custom shoot for this project at the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center) and past edited together to reveal his story in a dynamic way. The audio mix thoughtfully marries instrumental music with a ticking clock, heightening emotion and implying high stakes, in addition to key bites from past b-roll footage. This mix does the heavy lifting in giving the audience the details they need to understand Derek’s story, while remaining focused on the emotional aspect of it. What makes the VO so impactful is that anyone can relate to it by defining and reflecting on their adversity, and in so doing the audience is brought along emotionally to be fully invested in Derek’s success.
The dramatic conclusion showing Derek complete his long jump inserts the same level of breathtaking, heart-stopping moments of athleticism that make the Olympics and Paralympics so compelling to watch. The visual direction of seeing the sand traveling vertically upwards in the air because of the impact of Derek’s jump is artfully positioned behind the logo of the nonprofit that had so much impact on Derek’s life.
Following the end-page tag for CAF is the official tune-in slate for Paris 2024. Including this component not only adds gravitas to the PSA, but strategically made the spot even more attractive to schedulers at NBCUniversal because they were promoting a company priority at the same time that they were highlighting a message about accessibility. This is a major contributing factor for the impressive results you’ll see in the next section.
This spot truly holds its own in commercial breaks next to those from the biggest creative agencies and clients. Knowing it was produced by young apprentices from underserved communities makes the PSA more meaningful.
The PSA began airing on May 20, 2024, to align with 100 days out to the Paris Olympics, which is a key moment in NBCUniversal’s overall Olympic marketing window, and it will continue to run through the Paralympics. As of August 14, 2024, the PSA has received 98M+ media impressions (a $2.9M media value) across the platforms of NBCUniversal – and that is all in-kind donated inventory. NBCUniversal brought enormous awareness to a critical message for the disability community: with the proper resources and support, people like Derek can achieve their dreams.
