Earlier this year Channel 4 launched the Superhumans Wanted competition for advertisers as part of the broadcaster’s Year of Disability.
The eight shortlisted brands (and their ad agencies), are: Amazon (Lucky Generals); Barclays (Bartle Bogle Hegarty London); Dove (Ogilvy & Mather); H&M (Adam & Eve/DDB); Lloyds Bank (Adam & Eve/DDB); Lynx (TMW Unlimited); Maltesers (Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO); and Purdey’s (Iris Worldwide).
Launched at Advertising Week Europe in April, the competition winner with the strongest campaign idea will be given £1 million in free media by Channel 4, including an exclusive launch spot during coverage of this year’s Paralympics Games Opening Ceremony on 7 September.
The judging panel, chaired by Jonathan Allan, the sales director at Channel 4, includes: Tim Lefroy, CEO, Advertising Association; Claire Beale, global editor-in-chief, Campaign; Tom Knox, president, IPA; Mike Hughes, director general, ISBA; Chris Bovill and John Allison, heads of 4Creative; and Dan Brooke, the chief marketing and communications Officer, Channel 4.
Allan said: "We launched Superhumans Wanted to encourage UK advertisers and agencies to think differently about how they represent disability in their TV ad campaigns as we enter into the Rio Paralympics – and the response from the industry has been completely overwhelming.
"It was a tough shortlisting process but we believe we have the best of many unique campaign ideas in our final eight – and a real challenge awaits our expert judging panel to pick just one winner. Most importantly we hope that this initiative will inspire better disability representation in advertising and improve diversity in our commercial airtime."
