The archive · PR & Stunts · Marketing decision · 2021
WeThe15 gives the world's 1.2 billion disabled people a name and a movement
IPC and adam&eveDDB named the invisible 15% — 1.2 billion people with disabilities — and launched the movement at the Tokyo Paralympics with no media budget.
International Paralympic Committee
What it had to solve
People with disabilities number 1.2 billion — 15% of humanity, the world's largest minority — yet they were missing from the inclusion agenda, framed as objects of pity or put on pedestals. The Tokyo 2020 Paralympics offered a global stage, and the campaign had no media budget to buy attention.
How it works
People with disabilities number 1.2 billion — 15% of humanity and the world's largest minority — yet in the inclusion conversation they were mostly invisible, seen either as objects of pity or put on a pedestal. The Tokyo 2020 Paralympics offered the biggest stage on earth to change that.
WeThe15, launched by the International Paralympic Committee with a coalition of 20 organisations five days before the Games, gave the group what it had never had: a name, an identity and a rallying cry. adam&eveDDB made the launch film, Pentagram built a wordmark, symbol and sonic brand around the percentage, and the message was deliberately plain — people with disabilities are wonderfully ordinary.
With no media budget, the identity itself was the media: the film ran live to an audience of over 250 million in the opening ceremony, athletes carried the symbol on their skin, and more than a hundred landmarks across six continents glowed purple on launch night. The campaign entered the D&AD awards archive as a PR movement.
Why it lands
- Naming the 15% turns an abstract statistic into a constituency people can identify with or support.
- The identity gives the movement a visual flag — symbol, colour, hashtag — that costs nothing to spread.
- The Paralympic opening ceremony supplied an audience no media budget could have bought.
- 'Wonderfully ordinary' rejects both pity and pedestal, making the campaign an invitation rather than an appeal.
What it did
With no paid media, the identity and naming did the work: a launch film seen by 250 million-plus, landmarks from the Tokyo Skytree to Niagara Falls turning purple, athletes carrying the symbol into the Games, and a coalition of brands and organisations rallying around the mark — the campaign entered D&AD's awards archive as a PR movement.
What you can take
A group without a name cannot rally: turning a census statistic into a movement brand — name, mark, colour, hashtag — gives people something to join and supporters a flag to carry, at no media cost.
Since then
WeThe15 launched on 19 August 2021, five days before the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, as the start of a decade-long drive by the IPC and its coalition for rights-based progress for disabled people worldwide. Organisations and brands adopted the symbol as a permanent rallying point, and the campaign is documented in the D&AD awards archive as one of the largest human rights movements ever launched around a sporting event.
Sources
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