Ambassadors, supporters and fans formed the backbone of several AToMiC-winning campaigns carrying a single mission: to call the world’s attention to a just and noble cause.

The Grand Prix winner, the Canadian Paralympic Committee, placed world-class athletes on a mass pedestal with the help of a few thousand friends.

Paralympians are lionhearts. In the process of becoming the best of the best in their respective sport, they must overcome physical and societal adversity. Yet, their heroic achievements are often overlooked.

An unfortunate fact: only 10% of the Paralympic Games are broadcast by TV networks. So even if a person wanted to support these athletes, it wouldn’t be easy, considering the games weren’t available to watch. That’s where “The Paralympic Network” comes in.

What’s interesting about Paralympic fans is that they’re not run-of-the-mill passive supporters, they’re passionate fanatics. This observation by the organization and BBDO led to a unique campaign and channel strategy, where the team converted fans into mini broadcasters to amp up coverage of the games.

It created the “Become a Broadcaster” tool on Facebook and Twitter. Anyone using the platform could select which games they wanted to watch/broadcast to their personal networks – all in advance of the actual event. The game was then automatically live-streamed to the fan’s friends and family at the first whistle blown.

Setting up timers for content to be live-streamed was a unique idea. The commission gave people a new way to watch the underrated Games, succeeding in its mission by getting Canadians to broadcast over 22,000 events. That’s more than 990,000 video views (or 15,843 hours), which equated to an astounding 11,464% increase in viewership compared to the previous Winter Games.