Orange Paralympics Ad Reruns the “Race That Made History”

The Paralympic Games begin in Paris this week, and we’re putting the spotlight on Orange’s ad demolishing the idea that the Paralympics are less competitive or exacting than the Olympics – by showing a side-by-side 1500m race in which the Paralympic athletes run faster.

The Paralympics have had a welcome prominence alongside recent Olympic Games. That has raised the profile of Paralympic sponsors as well as athletes, with many ads for the games winning industry awards and resonating strongly with the wider public. But the recent history of Paralympics ads is also a history of the changing ways disabled people are presented, and present themselves, to the world. The language, culture and understanding around disability is changing rapidly, and an approach that won awards only 16 years ago might now be seen as outdated or condescending.

When we conducted our Feeling Seen studies of diversity and inclusion in advertising and their impact on effectiveness, we found that disabled people were one of the most difficult demographic groups to generate a ‘Diversity Dividend’ for, where an ad outperforms its overall score with a sample from the featured group. Because it’s such a fast-evolving conversation, portrayals of disabled people in ads might score well with the public but not any better – and sometimes worse – with disabled audiences themselves. Disability representation in ads is vital, but it has to be handled carefully and well.

In this ad Paralympics sponsor Orange take one of the prejudices they’ve encountered about the Paralympics – that it’s inherently a less demanding event than the Olympics – and tackle it head on, with a split screen depiction of two races from Rio 2016, one the Olympic 1500m final, the other the Paralympic 1500m T13 final (for athletes with visual impairment).

The ad works on two levels, first of all arranging the race footage to bring home how little difference there is between the two races – the same events, the same shots and even very similar commentary. That’s already working to break down the prejudice that the Paralympics is ‘lesser’. But then comes the twist – the faster time was actually the Paralympics gold medalist, not the Olympics one. There was a difference, just not the one most viewers expected.

These results are unusual – as the ad says, this was a “race that made history”. But they show what’s possible and they underline how serious and competitive Paralympic sport is. The ad closes with a montage of other Paralympic events, building anticipation for the Games and reminding the audience that Orange is the exclusive streaming partner.

For our audience, the ad worked more as an ad for the Paralympics themselves than one for Orange in particular – it got a low 67% Brand Fluency measure. But it also landed a strong 4.6-Star Rating, the central Test Your Ad metric which predicts the potential for long-term growth. So this ad has had a powerful emotional impact even if attribution to Orange themselves is a little lacking. Orange’s ad joins a line of striking and prejudice-busting Paralympics ads, for a Games that’s higher-profile than ever thanks in part to the efforts of its sponsors.