Not enough people watch the Paralympics. Paralympians are world class athletes who have not only risen to the top of their respective sports, but have overcome physical, social and societal adversity in the process. They deserve an audience.

One of the biggest hurdles to people watching the Paralympics in Canada is actually quite simple – most of it isn’t even broadcast on TV. At the previous Winter Paralympics in 2014, less than 10% of the events were shown on TV. So even if someone wanted to support Canada’s Paralympians, it wasn’t actually available on their TV sets.

The challenge was to find a way to get Canada’s Paralympians the coverage they deserved, outside of traditional broadcasting. In a world where Facebook and Twitter are two of the biggest national media channels, everyone is a broadcaster. The idea was to turn passionate fans into a network of Paralympics broadcasters.

The “Become a Broadcaster” app was created, allowing fans to sign up in advance to broadcast livestreams of Paralympic events directly to their Facebook or Twitter feeds. Livestreams happen all the time, but creating an app that allowed fans to sign up to automatically livestream an upcoming event was something that had never been done before. This was a first-of-its-kind initiative.

Our app was for those who had already witnessed the greatness of Canada’s Paralympic athletes and would want to share this experience with others. The strategy was built around identifying these advocates and getting them to sign up. The team broke this task into three distinct tasks: 1) Find optimal candidates, 2) Get them to the Become a Broadcaster site, and 3) Make participation easy.

A list of criteria for optimal candidates was created, which included following Canada’s Paralympians on social, visiting the Canadian Paralympic website, or seeking out Paralympic content. From there, a complementary media plan was developed to target and re-target these candidates at times and in places they would be most receptive to the campaign message. Finally, once on the Become a Broadcaster site, sign up was as easy as possible with a streamlined and intuitive user flow.

The campaign launched the week preceding Opening Ceremony, when conversation, enthusiasm and interest was at its peak. Three online videos were created, each showcasing a different Canadian Paralympian and the incredible odds they needed to overcome to achieve athletic greatness. Static social posts and online banners were targeted to optimal candidates, driving them to the site. Paid media was complemented by a robust earned media push urging Paralympic fans to sign up to become broadcasters.

The objective was to get Canadian Paralympians the coverage they deserved outside of traditional TV broadcasting, and that’s exactly what the campaign achieved. Canadian Paralympians went from minimal coverage to having thousands of individual broadcasters. Using the first of its kind livestreaming app, fans of the Canadian Paralympics signed up to broadcast over 22,000 events, which led to over 990,000 video broadcast views. For some context, this initiative alone generated 15,843 hours of online viewership, an increase of 11,464% compared to the previous Winter Paralympics. Additionally, the campaign generated over 76 million social impressions, an increase of 2,084% compared to the 2014 Sochi Winter Paralympic Games. By giving people a whole new way to watch the Paralympics, this campaign made the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games the most watched in Canadian history.