Lynsey Atkin: Why Channel 4 Has Pivoted from Superhumans to Athletes

It’s time we got over the use of the label ‘Superhumans’ when it comes to promoting coverage of the Paralympic Games. That’s the message coming out of Channel 4 as it begins to prepare promotion of the forthcoming tournament, moving on from arguably the most lauded campaign in its history.

Following the last spot for the 2020 Tokyo Games, which ended with the smashing of a screen that featured the term ‘Superhuman’, the broadcaster wants viewers to see the athletes as competitors, no longer wishing to use a collective label that could ‘other’ them.

The latest campaign, ‘Considering What?’ aims to change the viewing public’s preconceptions around the Paralympic Games by capturing their reactions as they watch the sport without an appreciation that they are world-class athletes in their own right.

The full-length two-minute and 20-second film, features 'Gravity' as a slovenly shirtless man with a pint in his hand, laughing at the Paralympic athletes and 'Friction' as a boy-racer in a bright yellow sports car. They embody challenges that the athletes must overcome just to compete, while a voiceover highlights some of the doubts they must also beat from within their minds.  

Alongside the TV spot, an OOH campaign featuring Paralympians Justine Moore, Gemma Collins (fencing); Mark Swan (powerlifting); Harri Jenkins, Fay West and Nick Cummins (wheelchair rugby); and Kare Adenegan (wheelchair racing) will also go live from 12 August.

4Creative’s outgoing chief creative officer Lynsey Atkin, who is preparing for a move to McCann London in September, explained the thinking behind the new work, the latest in a long-lasting legacy that goes as far back as to the London 2012 Games.

Why move away from the label ‘Superhumans’ in this latest spot?

When we did the last spot for Tokyo, it was then there was a big conversation about what we did with Superhumans because ‘Superhuman’ did an amazing amount of good to change the conversation.

It changed the way everyone in this country saw the Paralympic Games alongside the way that has Channel 4 broadcast it - all of those things. Clearly, besides the change in attitude shift, after Rio [host city of the 2016 Games] there started to be more rhetoric and more commentary from journalists from the disabled community.

They were starting to find this phrase a bit problematic, and a bit inspiration-porny, and othering. So when we did the Tokyo spot, that's why we put that full stop between ‘Super’ and ‘human’ because we flipped the coin and we talked about the human side of the athletes, not the ‘super’ side. We knew that we needed to move away from all this talk of ‘super’.

At the end of that film, we actually smashed the word ‘super’ at the end of it. And so that felt like Channel 4 saying: “Look, guys, we hear you, we get it. We know that this isn't fit for purpose anymore.” So it would have been really odd for us to have come back after three years later and gone; “Right Superhumans then”.

What's interesting about it is, it felt like a very natural thing to move away from it. I can't recall one difficult conversation throughout this process where we said to people: "We're not going to use ‘Superhumans'". No-one challenged it. Everybody understood that now was the time to say something else and move the conversation on in a way that needed to be moved on. And also, from a creative point of view, three is really nice timing. We went from ‘We’re the Superhumans’ to ‘Meet the Superhumans’ to ‘Super.Human’ and that was a neat trilogy of films that told the narrative of Superhumans. And so, it felt like a very natural thing to do to move away from it.

Does the move away from what people are expecting with another 'Superhumans' campaign help it stand out more too?

When you say about it, it’s something that everyone's expecting. I think it's that and it is also moving away from a big musical. The last few years have been very led by the track and I think we knew from the beginning that we wanted to move away from ‘Superhuman’ and we wanted to move away from the kind of musical spectacular, if you like, for exactly the reason you're saying.

This is because otherwise it’s just not going to trigger anything in anybody's brain and no-one's going to start having a different conversation.

What led to the focus on Friction and Gravity within the latest spot?

The insight came from a piece of research that tells us that 60 per cent of viewers are watching the Paralympics to see the athletes ‘overcome’ their disabilities.

We obviously talk to a lot of the Paris committee and the IPC [International Paralympics Committee] - we worked with Scope and we've worked with Purple Goat, a disability-led agency. Whenever we speak to people, whether they are athletes or within the disabled community, the word 'overcoming' is so problematic, because all it does is compound the idea that disability is a problem for the individual to overcome. Not the idea, which is that a lot of the problems and inequalities associated with disability are created by society. So, it's quite an ableist, and quite a patronising idea, this idea of people overcoming their disability.

We want them to think that there is jeopardy in sport, and that they are battling something. So quite clearly, if they are not battling and overcoming the disability, what are they overcoming? Of course, it's the same thing any athlete is overcoming, which is the basic laws of the universe. It's the things that govern us. Whether it's the Paralympics or the Olympics, or any sport, you win by a split second. It's all of those things; it's time, it's gravity, it's those things that you have to, as an elite athlete, propel yourself above and try and beat to be the world's best. And so that became the creative focus of how we dramatise that.

And when we personified those forces with Gravity as the larger guy with the pint and Friction is the abrasive character in the car and Lady Time as the antithesis of Old Father Time - we had a much younger woman representing Time - they gave us these visual motifs and they allowed us to come back to them and to be memorable.

At Channel 4 we don't ever just want to make a sports ad. It will never just be: ‘Oh, here's loads of footage of people playing sport’, because that's not what we're here to do and it's not what we want to do. So basically it allows us to hopefully create something that's still a real, memorable visual spectacle, but not in the way that the Paralympics has been shown before.

The voiceover provides strong narration for the ad – can you talk a little about that?

That came quite really early on. That was what the initial idea was in the bones of the script. Every other Paralympics ad before this has been led by a piece of music, there isn't any voiceover. You can put the sound up, but there's no voice. So, if we have this sort of narration through it and also, it's an interesting thing when you're talking about things that are big, grand things: gravity, friction and time. The idea of having almost like a voice of God, this sort of sense of the grandeur of the forces that control our world, juxtaposed with surprising visuals in a very Channel 4 way. Again, that feels different. It feels different for all the right reasons this time around.

What is the main message you want audiences to take away from watching the film and seeing the campaign?

The idea is that excellence is excellence - no caveats. And I think you can see from the posters the idea; 'amazing considering' is this idea that there has to be a qualifier on the achievement of Paralympians. The idea that they are elite athletes, first and foremost and that is the thing that we should be focusing on. And I think that's always what we're trying to do, which is make the games look exciting and get people behind Team Paralympics GB. But I think it is just this idea that we want to question people's preconceived notions and we want people to just see them for the exceptional athletes that they are.

And finally, as you get set to join McCann London later this year, what will you look back on at 4Creative as being your legacy?

Oh, God, that's a tough question. I think the team is brilliant. I will leave behind a team that I've helped build and I think that they are excellent, lovely people. And I hope I leave behind somewhere that the person who comes in after me enjoys working here, because everyone is very good at what they do.