Pictured in the featured image are USA athlete Tatyana McFadden and British athletes Hannah Cockcroft and Melissa Nichols celebrating victories and holding up their respective country’s flag.
But what if the Paralympics competitions expanded into awarding medals for each country’s best inclusion of people with disabilities in advertising? Britain would be leagues ahead of the U.S.A., and here’s why. Continue reading
The Rio Paralympics haven’t even started, and the games are already in a crisis of shifted funding for athlete participation, diminished staff and potentially empty stands. But the Sagamihara massacre and Japan’s surrounding miasma dealing with disability, make these hurdles seem small compared to what lies ahead for the games, athletes, advertisers and so many others when Tokyo hosts the Paralympics in 2020. Continue reading
I love everything about Jaguar cars and I’m a big fan of Stephen Hawking, but the combination of the two in the British auto brand’s latest advertisement left me a bit disappointed. The plot line pulls in James Bond themes with actor Tom Hiddleston, portraying a secret agent and driving the Jaguar F-PACE. The luxury car maneuvers effortlessly across roadways through cinematic vistas to arrive at a futuristic mountain hideaway where Hiddleston meets Stephen Hawking. Watch the commercial before reading any further and come to your own conclusions on what type of character Hawking is supposed to be. Continue reading
Two ad campaigns that came out days apart portray people with disabilities in totally different lights…one for the better and one not so good. What this tells me is that we have a long way to go to educate and inform agency creatives and advertisers on best practices to incorporate people with disabilities consistently and positively. Continue reading
Sammy Davis Jr. was an underdog iconoclast, talented actor, singer and had a damn good looking glass eye. How does he connect to the Paralymics? The UK’s Channel 4 created the groundbreaking three-minute advertisement We Are Superhuman, which is set to the iconic Sammy Davis Jr track, Yes I Can. The song has been re-recorded by a band of disabled musicians that come from from around the world, featuring lead vocalist Tony Dee. Continue reading
Most people know April 15th as tax day, but its also National American Sign Language Day and Burger King had a whopper of an idea to create some fun connections while connecting advertising and disability. Continue reading
Food styling, features and benefits and an amazing taste profile are all must haves in the consumer packaged goods category. But for brands to truly shine and create lasting connections with customers, the brand’s own employees, store owners and families everywhere, Honey Maid, among others, realizes that advertising can be powerful and go beyond category must haves to community hope. Continue reading
In March 2016 I was fortunate to participate on the panel Lights! Camera! Access! 2.0 Disability-inclusive Diversity – Advertising Through a Brand New Lens at the Forum on Workplace Inclusion. The conference convenes in Minneapolis each year to engage people, advance ideas and ignite change around the topics of diversity, inclusion and equity. Continue reading
You may be wondering how making apple and cheddar melts in a Honey Maid commercial ties into greater inclusion of people with disabilities in media, but if you read on, you’ll know that it does. Recently I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Stephanie Woodward, J.D. disability rights lawyer and activist who is currently director of advocacy at The Center for Disability Rights on her role as advocate and about her involvement in the Honey Maid commercial. Continue reading
It seems like in our industry marketers and agencies often clamor to be the first-to-market or the next big thing or want to ride the newest trend where CMO’s and creative directors will pontificate all day long on generalist statements about content being king and that we need to move on from millennials to a younger, hipper audience, but conversations are quieted within the industry when disability is brought into the mix.
This isn’t just my opinion that people with disabilities are rarely seen in advertising, it’s now, in part, academically proven. Continue reading