Leading Paralympians are challenging the perceived language bias surrounding the upcoming games with a hard-hitting campaign in which they claim that they “won’t be participating.”
Developed by creative agency Adam&EveDDB New York, social media users will quickly realise however that while the athletes won’t be ‘participating’ at the games, they will in fact be ‘competing’.
Forming part of the International Paralympic Committee’s ‘They’re not playing games’ campaign, the work sees Paralympic athletes call out the praise they often receive simply for ‘participating’ – instead declaring that they will be competing like any other elite athlete at the professional level.
“Paralympians have often been described in the media as ‘participants’ and not ‘competitors’,” said International Paralympic Committee chief brand and comms officer, Craig Spence.
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“At Paris 2024, it’s time we set the record straight. Adam&EveDDB’s social strategy and the involvement of so many great Paralympians will help drive conversations about this – and also help achieve our wider campaign aims.”
Adam&EveDDB global chief creative officer, Richard Brim added: “We’re super proud of this piece of work for the International Paralympic Committee out of New York with strategic support from London.
“When people talk about the athletes taking part in the Olympics, they tend to talk about them competing and yet when they talk about them taking part in the Paralympics, they talk more about them participating. What is that about?”
Taking part in the wide-ranging Paralympian campaign will be Jessica Long (USA), who has won 29 Paralympic medals including 16 golds, Bebe Vio (Italy), multi-award and gold medal winning wheelchair fencer, gold medal-winning javelin thrower Manasi Joshi (India), silver medal-winning table tennis player Bhavinaben Patel (India), and sprinter Marissa Papaconstantinou (Canada) who won bronze in the 100m at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.
