The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2024–2025
Channel 4's 'Considering What?' pits Paralympians against Gravity, Friction and Time
Channel 4's 2024 Paralympics film turns gravity, friction and time into grotesque bullies athletes fight — and wins the 2025 Film Grand Prix.
Channel 4
What it had to solve
Channel 4's own research found 59% of viewers watched the Paralympics to 'see athletes overcoming their disabilities' versus 37% for exciting competition. For its first campaign since 2012 without the word 'Superhumans', the broadcaster wanted audiences to see Paralympians as elite athletes — and to turn the lens on the audience's patronising assumptions.
How it works
In July 2024 Channel 4 unveiled 'Considering What?', its campaign for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, built on research the broadcaster commissioned: 59% of people said they watch the Games to 'see athletes overcoming their disabilities', while only 37% watch for exciting sporting competition. The film's target was not the athletes but that patronising lens.
Rather than show Paralympians 'overcoming' disability, 4creative personified the forces that make no exception for anyone: Gravity as a grotesque, shirtless man clutching a pint who toys with wheelchair rugby star Aaron Phipps, Friction as a boy-racer whose donuts drag Dame Sarah Storey across gravel, and Lady Time with a relentlessly spinning stopwatch as sprinter Emmanuel Oyinbo-Coker drifts to the back of the field. Each athlete conquers their tormentor, and messages flash up: 'Sport Doesn't Care About Disability.'
The 2:20 film, cut to 60, 40, 20 and 6 seconds, first broadcast on 12 July 2024 across all Channel 4 channels, with Nabil Shaban's voiceover closing: 'They would never say "He's amazing for someone in a wheelchair."' It was the broadcaster's first Paralympics campaign since 2012 not to use the word 'Superhumans', supported by an OOH poster campaign and a mural by disabled artist Florence Burns.
At Cannes Lions 2025 the film won the Grand Prix in Film, one of two awarded that year; jury president Kate Stanners said it had an 'unreasonable power to elicit emotion'. The idea — turn the audience's pity into the antagonist — became the template for Channel 4's Games marketing and a landmark of disability representation in advertising.
Why it lands
- The insight reframes who the problem belongs to: the audience's pity, not the athletes' bodies.
- Personifying gravity, friction and time gives athletes a fair, universal adversary everyone can feel.
- The title 'Considering What?' lands the whole argument in three words at the end of the film.
- Dropping 'Superhumans' after twelve years made the shift explicit and newsworthy.
- A 2:20 film cut down to six seconds kept the idea intact across every placement.
What it did
The campaign won the Cannes Lions 2025 Film Grand Prix — the jury praised its 'unreasonable power to elicit emotion' — one of two Grands Prix that year. It was Channel 4's first Paralympics campaign since winning broadcast rights that dropped 'Superhumans', reframing the national conversation from pity to performance.
What you can take
Reframe the audience, not the subject: when the insight is that viewers pity athletes, make the pity itself the antagonist — the athletes then win against a force everyone shares, not a disability.
Since then
The film capped Channel 4's Paralympic coverage, which had run under the 'Superhumans' banner since London 2012; the 2024 campaign deliberately retired that word. It won the 2025 Cannes Lions Film Grand Prix, shared with L'Oréal's 'The Final Copy of Ilon Specht', and became a reference for respectful disability representation in advertising. The supporting OOH and mural extended the idea into public space, and the campaign kept Channel 4's reputation for disability-led creative front of mind heading into Los Angeles 2028.
Sources
- Channel 4's Paris 2024 Paralympic Games marketing campaign challenges patronising attitudes
- Cannes Lions 2025: Film, Titanium, Glass and SDG winners
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe the brief you are staring at, and see who has been given the same problem.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card