‘Heroes’ on the big screen

The International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s latest TV public service announcement ‘Heroes’ will be shown to thousands of Olympic fans during the Olympic Games on the giant Panasonic ASTROVISION screens in the Olympic stadiums and venues.

Federer, Yao Ming, Liu Xiang
Legendary Olympic athletes including Roger Federer, Yao Ming, Laure Manaudou, Liu Xiang and Yelena Isinbayeva are among the stars of the IOC’s public service announcement entitled “Heroes”.

Discover the video

Bubka:”Positive role models”
Sergey Bubka, Chairman of the IOC Athletes’ Commission, commented: “When I was growing up there were many athletes to look up to, and so I know young people need to have positive role models. To get so many of the world’s best known athletes together for the ’Heroes’ advert shows the athletes’ commitment to the Olympic Movement and the Olympic values, and on behalf of the IOC I am grateful to them for giving up time out of their busy training schedules for the project. We hope that the ’Heroes’ advert will really capture the imagination and inspire young people around the world.”

The ‘Heroes’ public service announcement and the first PSA of the campaign, entitled ‘Teens’ have also been played by rights holding broadcasters and on third party websites around the world, on the Panasonic screens in Times Square, NYC and in locations across Japan.

The Best of Us
The theme of the promotional campaign is “The Best of Us” - a simple, powerful idea that transcends cultures and borders, motivating young people around the world to participate in sport by proving that sport can bring out the best of them. The campaign was launched in 2007 and will continue to run beyond the Beijing Games.

Viral campaign
In addition to the TV spots, the humorous, fictional ‘Puskitas’ ‘viral’ campaign has been made available on a number of websites, including www.olympic.org and www.nbcolympics.com as well as many popular community websites such as www.youtube.com. The film features Puskitas, an underdog judo athlete, who amazingly wins his match and proceeds to celebrate in a very original way! Puskitas is capable of overcoming the odds and ‘bringing out his best’ in order to achieve his goals.
The IOC’s Best of Us’ print campaign has run in several major print and web publications around the world, including Sports Illustrated Kids, Sports Illustrated, People and Time . In fact the campaign has appeared in nearly 60 million magazines and had over 30 million on-line impressions.

Olympic Personal Trainer
In addition to all of these elements the IOC’s online ‘OIympic Personal Trainer’ has had thousands of views from Olympic fans and young athletes from around the world looking to benefit from the expertise and experience of Olympic legends including Sergey Bubka, Hicham El Guerrouj suggest adding Popov and one of the women- including their thoughts on questions like: “How do you set goals?” or “How do you learn from failure?” and “Why is teamwork important?”. Olympic Personal Trainer is featured on www.olympic.org.
All of the elements of the campaign are now available to view at: www.olympic.org/thebestofus

The ‘Best of Us’ campaign has been developed by the Voluntarily United Group of Creative Agencies (United), part of the WPP Group. This first phase of creative development was led by Sra Rushmore / United, Madrid.

The IOC will work with United on a multi-dimensional campaign approach, comprising TV, online, print, viral promotion, experiential and PR activities. The global campaign will be rolled out in a phased approach in the run-up to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and beyond.