Human-centered strategy · Health technology · Earned storytelling
Making an essential support role visible.
Ottobock's technicians were the pit crew behind every athlete at the 2017 Invictus Games. Almost nobody outside the venue knew they existed.
- Role
- Senior Account Executive, Edelman
- Context
- Ottobock served as the official technical service provider at the 2017 Invictus Games in Toronto, repairing and fitting prosthetics and wheelchairs on site.
- Business question
- How does a technical components company become meaningful to audiences who will never buy its products?
- What I owned
- Media strategy and phased outreach plan
- Target lists
- Briefing materials
- Spokesperson and athlete coordination
- Interview logistics and reporting
- Methods
- Audience and story-platform development
- Narrative architecture
- Spokesperson preparation
- Earned media relations
- Results measurement
Attribution. This was agency work. Results below were produced by a broader Edelman team and reported in Edelman's October 2017 program report. My contribution is the media strategy, outreach, briefing, and coordination workstream described here - not the campaign in its entirety, and not the client's business performance.
An indispensable role, structurally invisible.
Ottobock ran the on-site repair and fitting workshop at the Games. When a prosthetic socket cracked between heats or a racing chair lost alignment, a technician fixed it in minutes. Without them, athletes would not have competed. And yet the role sat entirely outside the story the Games were telling - which was, correctly, about the athletes.
The constraint
A components manufacturer cannot make itself the protagonist of an adaptive-sport event without looking opportunistic. The audience did not want a technology story and the media were not going to run one.
Nor could the brand claim credit for athlete performance. The performance belonged to the athletes.
The strategic move
Stop pitching the technology. Pitch the relationship - the technician and the athlete, and what the technology makes possible in a life rather than in a race.
That reframe gave reporters two things they actually wanted: a human character nobody had written about, and a credible expert to explain the technology inside an athlete's story.
Technology matters because it supports real people, real performance, and real independence.
One sentence that resolved the whole problem. It gave every pitch a subject the brand could legitimately own, put the athlete first, and made the technician - not the product - the way in.
Three things the program had to accomplish.
- 01
Show the service role
Make on-site repair and fitting legible as a story, not a logistics footnote.
- 02
Elevate athlete stories
Lead with the competitor. The brand earns relevance by being useful to their narrative, not by interrupting it.
- 03
Equip spokespeople
Prepare technicians, executives, and athletes to handle on-site media conversations confidently and consistently.
Where my work sat inside the program.
Owned by me
I built the media approach and ran the outreach and access operation across the Games.
- Plan - media strategy, timelines, target lists, and a phased outreach plan across sports, technology, lifestyle, and local media
- Prepare - briefing materials for technicians, executives, and athletes; story angles matched to each outlet
- Activate - outreach, interview logistics, on-site communications materials, and strategic pivots during the Games
- Report - results tracking and day-to-day client communication
Not owned by me
Overall account leadership, creative production, the client's on-site activation build, and the broader Edelman team's parallel workstreams. The results on this page are program-level outcomes that multiple people contributed to.
Eleven original stories, each built for a specific audience.
Not eleven versions of a press release. Each placement below was developed as a distinct angle - a friendship, a piece of engineering, a recovery, a repair crew - matched to what that outlet's readers actually read.
| Outlet | Date | Angle | Platform served |
|---|---|---|---|
| People | Sep 1 | U.S. co-captain Stefan LeRoy on bonding with Prince Harry over a shared love of flying | Real people |
| People | Sep 8 | LeRoy on Prince Harry's commitment to veterans and the Games | Real people |
| iHeartRadio Canada | Sep 17 | TechTalk segment on Ottobock and adaptive technology | Technology |
| Toronto Star | Sep 24 | How advanced prosthetic devices improved athlete mobility and performance | Real performance |
| CBC News | Sep 27 | How a state-of-the-art prosthetic leg helped an athlete win silver | Real performance |
| Discovery Channel | Sep 27 | Daily Planet segment on adaptive sports technology | Technology |
| CTV News | Sep 27 | Inside the Games and the technology supporting competitors | Technology |
| CBC News | Sep 28 | The technicians serving as the Games' behind-the-scenes repair team | The invisible role |
| ESPN | Sep 28 | Christy Wise on competition, recovery, and returning to her life | Real independence |
| National Post | Sep 28 | The Games as both a sporting event and a showcase for prosthetic technology | Technology |
| 680 News Toronto | Sep 30 | Broadcast coverage from the Games | Real performance |
Matching the right voice to the right reporter.
Nineteen phone briefings and on-site interviews. The operational work was deciding which athlete, technician, or executive could answer the question a given reporter was actually asking - and preparing them for it.
| Reporter and outlet | Voices provided |
|---|---|
| Simon Perry - People | Stefan LeRoy; Christy Wise |
| Kerry Gillespie - Toronto Star | Steve Murgatroyd; Gary Sjonnesen; Steve Wall; Mike Trauner; Simon Mailloux |
| Steve Wulf - ESPN | Ivan Sears |
| Anna Katherine Clay - ESPN | Stefan LeRoy; Scott Schneider; Christy Wise; Simon Mailloux |
| Jane Hu - How We Get to Next | Scott Schneider |
| Marc Saltzman - iHeartRadio Canada | Gary Sjonnesen |
| Spenser Mestel - VICE Motherboard | Scott Schneider |
| Grant Linton - CBC | Mark A.; Aaron Holm |
| Kris McCusker - 680 News Toronto | Aaron Holm |
| Sheryl Ubelacker - The Canadian Press | Mike Trauner |
| Natalie Johnson - CTV | Christy Wise; Mike Trauner; Aaron Holm |
| Discovery Channel | Paragolfer feature |
Eleven stories became ninety pieces of coverage.
What the numbers show
An 8:1 ratio between original stories and total pickup. That multiplier is the signature of stories built to be syndicated - wire-friendly human narratives with a technical expert attached - rather than announcements pushed to a list.
Coverage landed in People, ESPN, CBC News, CTV News, the Toronto Star, the National Post, and the Discovery Channel.
What I would do with it now
Reach and shares were the 2017 currency and they are no longer sufficient. If I ran this today I would define success as share of adaptive-technology conversation and message penetration - what proportion of coverage actually carried the service-role narrative rather than simply naming the brand.
That is a measurable question, and it is the one a client should have been asking.
Notes & sources
- All figures are as reported in Edelman's October 2017 program report, current as of October 6, 2017. The ninety pieces of coverage comprise eleven unique articles plus syndicated pickup.
- Potential media reach reflects the measurement conventions in use in 2017 and is an opportunity-to-see estimate, not verified audience.
- Attribution. Program-level results delivered by a broader Edelman team. My contribution is the workstream described in section 03.
- Photography from the 2017 Invictus Games as supplied in the original client materials.