Around 1 in 4 people in England live with a long term health condition, a term encompassing everything from diabetes to cancer to depression. And around 69% of them would like to be more active. The trouble is that exercise doesn’t seem like it’s for them. 

That’s because the one thing that unites these 15 million people, whose experiences otherwise vary, is the unpredictability of how their conditions affect them. Some days they can move how they please, and some days they can’t do anything at all. And when you literally can’t get out of bed for reasons outside of your control, “Just Do It” really doesn’t do.  

“We Are Undefeatable” is the first condition-agnostic campaign backed by 15 of the UK’s leading social charities designed to speak to this incredibly diverse audience. It embraces ups and downs in equal measure, and supports people in moving more, whatever that looks like for them. From TVCs to behaviour-change chatbots to achievable exercise resources to over 20 mini-documentaries, it makes being active feel accessible to a fundamentally underrepresented audience. In fact, 1 in 8 people with long term conditions became active due to seeing the first wave of our campaign.

This project is:
Client-commissioned

Agency
FCB Inferno

Client URL
weareundefeatable.co.uk

My Role in This Project
I developed We Are Undefeatable with my previous creative partner, Nicole Chen. When we received the brief, we knew that nailing representation of the reality of disability/health conditions was absolutely key. The world of sports marketing, with all of its drive and ambition, was doing worse than not appealing to our audience; in many cases, it was insulting them and driving them away because it was ignoring their unpredictable realities.

We wanted to create a fundamental shift in category communications, acknowledging our audience’s diversity of experience and often invisible symptoms. And we also knew it was critical to be honest and human, tackling difficult moments without an ounce of self-pity – a huge departure from how people with health conditions are typically portrayed.

We approached this project as a full 360 campaign, leveraging any touch points we could to help being active feel more accessible. This has included creating new mini workout systems and behaviour change resources that help people reframe their accomplishments - safe to say, not traditional ads by any means. But because we were used to thinking more holistically about solving problems, we were able to produce a fairly comprehensive library of resources alongside our TVCs, mini-documentaries, and stills.

Working alongside our director, we pushed for diversity of all types in our casting; ethnic diversity, socioeconomic diversity, and being inclusive of disabilities. We even pushed to be more inclusive when it comes to what we think of as sport, including activities like walking to the shop or stretching as the kettle boils so as to genuinely create a campaign that would work for those with long term health conditions. And we’ve worked with our cast to ensure we’re representing their perspectives fully, creating the campaign alongside them and leveraging their own home videos to tell their stories.