Three years ago, the Paralympic Games fundamentally shifted the way the British public thought about disability. In 2014, the Office for National Statistics asked 10,000 people about the Paralympic legacy. The study showed that 68% said attitudes toward disabled people have improved. At this year's National Paralympic Day at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, law firm Irwin Mitchell debuted a series of films featuring clients who compete in disabled or paralympic sport.

The series, developed by London-based communiations consultancy, Instinctif Partners, is part of the firm's 'Don't Quit, Do It' campaign. "So many of our clients never cease to amaze ua. What they achieve despite everything that they face and are likely to face is truly inspirational. A lot of them get involved in things they wouldn't have been involved with before. All these clients had different stories to tell. 'Don't Quit, Do It,' says it all. Look at what you can achieve," says Irwin Mitchell's head of business development, Michelle Beat.

The campaign includes ongoing communications, video and social media activity talking about those recovering from accidents, living with disabilities or other impairments. At National Paralympic Day, the hashtag #DontQuitDoIt took off on Twitter and Instagram, paving the way for the launch of the promo video for the film series – now viewed about 600,000 times. Five, one-and-a-half minute documentary-style films form the first part of the film series.

Beat says the firm works with people who suffer life-changing injuries not just in the courts, but by providing support throughout recovery, rehabilitation and the pursuit of the best possible quality of life. Irwin Mitchell has run other campaigns in the past to support issues relevant to this clientele – including one in which it had wheelchair users report on their experiences at festivals. Don’t Quit Do It allows the firm to show how important sport has become to the recovery process and the achievements people can make in these circumstances. Thus, Irwin Mitchell turned to Instinctif Partners to produce the series.

“One of the key things we tried to do in this campaign is to be really genuinely authentic,” says Instinctif Partners’ Mike Macfarlane, partner in the film & motion team. “The second part is storytelling; telling stories that inspire your reputation, that inspire your brand, inspire your customers and potential customers.” It was important from the outset for the films to have a cinematic look and feel to them. The team strayed from the oft-trod path of the standard TV show or documentary and instead used a style of filming and editing more at home in movie production or high-quality advertising. Each of the five focuses on the personal journey of one of Irwin Mitchell’s clients. “Irwin Mitchell sent out an internal email to all of their solicitors to see whether any of them had any of their clients turn to sport following their injuries,” says Meg Burden, producer for Instinctif Partners, about the selection process. “I think they were overwhelmed and inundated by responses from their solicitors who came back with huge lists of people.”

Those selected represent a variety of ages, type of athlete and type of injury from a little girl, an avid horse rider, injured at birth and living with cerebral palsy to a young man with a traumatic brain injury and semi-paralysis following a car accident. Burden adds, “We wanted to the films to blend the emotional, personal testimony with very powerful engaging visuals while at the same time communicating Irwin Mitchell’s very authentic human brand.” She interviewed each subject and discussed their personal history and the circumstances of their injury and then filmed each person playing sport. The visual style highlights the athletes’ skills in a vivid setting as the images are overlaid with interviews and extensive sound design.

Macfarlane says sound was an important aspect as nearly every sound was added in post-production, lending the viewer a sense of what it feels like to be a competitive wheelchair badminton player or amputee cycler. “The sound design is a huge part of what makes those films interesting,” Macfarlane says, adding that B2B visual communications is changing. “We have to be much more inventive, much more proactive about putting stuff out there across lots of different digital channels. What I wanted us to do in this campaign is strike that balance. It’s still a piece of communications delivered on a defined business objective, however if you look at it as a standalone piece, you’ve got the movement, the aesthetic that goes with it.”

But the core of each film is the interview. That’s where Burden had to work with each subject to ensure she could distill a complex personal history down to a 60-second spot. For two subjects who suffered neurological trauma, that was a challenge. But Burden says it was rewarding to get it right. The girl with cerebral palsy had her parents leave the room during filming to complete the interview on her own. “I think it’s possible it was one of the first times in her entire life that her parents had left her to do he own thing. Her parents watched the video and saw what she’d actually said and how clearly she said it and were absolutely blown away,” says Burden.

These five are only the beginning as Irwin Mitchell seeks to continue the campaign into a second phase featuring new videos and renewed digital content. Macfarlane says the project was in keeping with the firm’s focus on its client relationships and overall brand positioning. Beat says the objective is to raise awareness about disability in sports and to increase brand awareness for the firm.

And it’s not over yet, Burden will next film an amputee football team in Portsmouth and then will shoot a wheelchair rugby team in action. Beat says, “It’s surpassed our expectations, but we’re in it for the long term and we’ve got much more content to come.”