Channel 4 Launches Superhumans Wanted Competition

Channel 4 has announced plans for a £1million donation of its commercial airtime as a prize in a major new initiative to encourage brands and media and creative agencies to prominently feature disability and disabled talent in their advertising campaigns.

Launched as part of Channel 4’s Year of Disability and announced at Advertising Week Europe this morning, the Superhumans Wanted prize will be awarded to the brand or agency which submits the strongest campaign idea – and their ad given an exclusive launch spot in the first break of the 2016 Rio Paralympics Games Opening Ceremony on Wednesday 7 September.

The competition extends the broadcaster’s far-reaching commitments to improving diversity on-and-off-screen beyond just its editorial content and into Channel 4’s important commercial airtime.

The Superhumans Wanted initiative aims to encourage UK advertisers to think differently about how they represent disability in their TV ad campaigns and extends the broadcaster’s commitments to improving diversity on-and-off-screen beyond its editorial content and into important commercial airtime.

In line with its remit, Channel 4 wants to work with the ad industry to improve diverse representation and challenge perceptions to help commercial airtime on television better reflect the diversity in Britain today.

The initiative launches ahead of Channel 4 broadcasting live coverage of the 2016 Paralympic Games in September – and the follow up to the multi-award winning Meet the Superhumans marketing campaign set to launch this summer.

“As part of Channel 4’s Year of Disability, we want to ensure that our commitment to better reflecting disabled people goes beyond just our editorial approach and into our ad breaks,” says Jonathan Allan, sales director at Channel 4.

“The aim is to help inspire agencies and clients to think about what they can do to champion disability. By us putting some serious skin in the game through giving away this significant amount of TV airtime, we hope to encourage the best creative ideas from our ad partners that will resonate with all our viewers and challenge perceptions of disability, just as our Meet the Superhumans campaign did in 2012.”

The judging panel will be made up of key industry bodies and commentators including representatives from ISBA, The Voice of British Advertisers, the Advertising Association, Campaign magazine – alongside Channel 4 Board members and in-house creative agency, 4Creative.

Further details and how to enter are available on the 4 Sales website. The closing date for entries is Wednesday 25 May 2016 and the winning campaign will be announced on Thursday 9 June 2016.