International Paralympic Committee
Global Awareness Campaign
Brand & Global Activation
Mandate Bringing advocacy groups, broadcasters, and global landmarks together around a single 24-hour campaign.
Paralympic visibility has a problem. It spikes during the Games and collapses the moment the closing ceremony ends. Four years of athletes, stories, and human achievement — then silence.
01 — The Brief
The goal was simple: build something that lives between Games cycles. Something that makes every region both audience and broadcaster at the same time.
02 — The Wave
The answer was a 24-hour Wave of Light — synchronized across 24 time zones, 24+ global landmarks, one moment of collective visibility that didn't require a podium or a medal to justify it. The Empire State Building. Iconic structures on six continents. Each one lit in the same blue, in sequence, as the wave traveled the globe.
03 — Architecture
Getting there took nine weeks of planning, agreement from every landmark's owners, and one set of rules — colour, wording, timing — held to by partners on six continents who had never worked together. Partnerships with the World Health Organization and two disability-technology groups, the Global Disability Innovation Hub and ATscale, gave the campaign a life in policy beyond the day itself.
This wasn't just a campaign. It proved that the Paralympic movement could hold the world's attention without a podium to anchor it.
04 — What Transferred
Global visibility doesn't need a bigger stage. It needs a synchronized rhythm and a reason for every region to show up as itself. I use that model whenever an organization thinks it needs one giant press moment, but really needs twenty-four smaller ones working in sync. Turn the spectacle into a shared rhythm, and the story carries itself across twenty-four time zones without anyone having to force it.
A lifelong connection to the movement informed every decision. I held the torch in 1992. I knew what was at stake.
All case studies