Génération Champions was a 2-year program which visited 8 cities in France, giving kids the chance to test Olympic and Paralympic sports, encouraging them to make sport a part of their everyday lives.
Cisco, a long-standing partner of the Olympics, has for years been committed to communicating its values through sport, and in particular to young people. For the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Auditoire and Cisco developed a strategy to support and promote sport among these generations. The goal was perfectly in line with the brand’s commitments, and the values of Paris 2024. Via Génération Champions, the idea was to make sporting experiences accessible to increase and retain participation in sports among the younger generation. From a business perspective, this program offered Cisco not only brand visibility, but the opportunity to meet with institutional representatives all over the country, presenting Cisco’s capabilities. Beyond host-city institutions, Cisco was also able to put on display via content from Génération Champions, the legacy project, to all customers that visited their customer hosting space, the Experience Center, located at their brand HQ.
The core of the creative idea for Génération Champions was founded on the notion, that in order to be authentic, we needed a strategic partner grounded in culture and sport. Golden Blocks, an NGO founded by former athlete and team Cisco member Ladji Doucouré was the perfect match for this project. Having organized sporting events for kids in greater Paris for a decade, they have an intimate knowledge of how to create a memorable experience around sport. This program took the Golden Blocks model, and pushed it further to reach all over France, and incorporate even more sports and experiences. Often similar programs (sports programs or others) are heavily focused in Paris and its suburbs. The ambition of Génération Champions was to be a truly national program, giving access to sport to those from underserved areas around France, while being surrounded by professional coaches.
