Czech Republic Presents its Impressive Marketing Efforts

At its inauguration the National Paralympic Committee of the Czech Republic (CPC) was faced with the sheer impossible task not only of raising awareness of elite sport for athletes with a disability but also and more importantly of creating an atmosphere of acceptance, tolerance and support. The more surprising are the successes the organization has achieved in the past six years. These were realized through a very impressive and creative public relations and marketing strategy. It generates considerable financial revenues and has created substantial recognition for disabled sport in the Czech society.

In the following, Juraj Groch, whose agency APM is responsible for marketing and public relations of the Czech NPC, shares main steps and the basic principles of his efforts.

The CPC marketing story started in 1995 with many difficulties, as it seemed to be almost impossible to raise any serious amount of money. We were in a situation where nobody in the Czech Republic knew the meaning of the word “Paralympic” – people
asked for instance, if it had something to do with parachuting. Then we asked a very famous actress, Magda Vašáryová (also serving as ambassador for the Czech Government), to assist us with promoting the Paralympic Movement.

Support of the Media

From our experience with the Olympic marketing we knew that we should start with marketing the movement through the media. Mrs. Vašáryová helped us to sign a TV contract with the major TV station in the Czech Republic, NOVA, a private channel, as the public one was not willing to support us. Then we negotiated agreements with the second largest daily paper (as the largest one had already committed itself to the National Olympic Committee), the major regional papers and the Czech radio. Today, we have agreements in place with all three major television stations, which cover 98 per cent of the Czech audience.

The Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games were a milestone for the Czech Paralympic Committee. For the first time, a television channel sent a TV crew to the Paralympics, which reported news from the Paralympics on a daily basis. In addition, every evening at prime time, a 7-minute show called “Postcard from Sydney” with news, results and interviews was broadcast.

Awareness Campaigns

Mrs. Vašáryová asked the most famous Czech actors, singers, painters and writers to help us to promote the idea of Paralympism. From the very beginning, we have explained to people that Paralympians are not “invalid”, as we had used to call them for the last 50 years, and that they are not even ill. It is our goal to increase the level of tolerance within the Czech society and to bring across the message that persons with a disability can be valuable members of society, if they are given a chance to do so.

A major TV station took on to teach sign language in a humorist way in a show with ten famous comedians on a daily basis for ten weeks. In the following year, 13 of the most famous Czech writers wrote a story about their own disabilities. The stories were published in major daily and weekly papers. Later on they were also published as a book, which the Czech Pen Club used as its official publication of the year. In addition, 64 caricaturists drew cartoons about athletes with a disability, which were exhibited in Prague and then also published as a book. This was a daring step, as people are absolutely not used to making fun of persons with a disability.

The annual Czech Paralympic Awards Ceremony has become a tradition in the last few years. The awards are usually presented to the ten best athletes by the President of the Czech Republic, Vazlav Havel. This year, the ceremony was even broadcast on TV for one hour on a Sunday evening.

We have also initiated an advertisement campaign for television and print media. The main messages are: “Paralympians are great, just look at them!”, “Lets try to understand them!” (for the year of deaf people) and “We can learn from them!” (for the Salt Lake Paralympic Winter Games 2002).

Just to end our short story: Today, the Paralympic marketing and our awareness campaigns are very successful. In 1995, only 4.5 percent of the population knew something about sport for athletes with a disability. Today, around 90 percent of all Czech citizens are familiar with the Paralympic Movement. We are in a position to say that we are at least as successful as the Olympic Movement in our country, if not even better!