Why advertisers need to stop ignoring disability.

Just before Christmas I watched the film ‘Wonder’, having put it off as I was fully aware it would be a cryer from start to finish, I braced myself for an emotional evening with tissues at the ready. The story of a young boy with facial disfigurements who has to navigate his way through school battling torment, bullying, and isolation. A feeling that no child should ever have to experience, but one that I imagine every child born with a form of disability will encounter at some point in their life. I was right, it was difficult to watch but it also totally earned its 8/10 IMDB rating for its beautifully scripted and acted delivery.

The film not only breaks the silence in the entertainment industry but is also a necessary reminder to those working in advertising that just like race and gender, in order to normalise we must start with inclusion. Having worked in advertising for the past 5 years, on reflection I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t been presented with ideas that champion disabled characters. And although I massively respect the efforts Channel 4 have gone to with their disability awareness competitions, I can’t help but question why we give special awards to adverts that include characters in wheelchairs, when it should just be the norm. 

I mention the word ‘norm’ a couple of times because it’s very easy to underrepresent things you are not regularly faced with and say, "I can't watch that film, I'll find it too upsetting" (which by the way is a privilege to pick whether disabilities effect you, not everyone has that luxury). But the longer we bury our heads in the sand and let our emotion of feeling awkward or too sad get in the way, the longer people with disabilities will be isolated in society. According to Scope there are 13.9 million people in the UK living with disabilities and the spending power of families with at least one disabled person is estimated by the Government to be over ￡200 billion a year. Yet we definitely do not see brands utilising the opportunity to target and include this demographic.

One of my favourite TED talks is Chris Downey's 'Design with the blind in mind', a talk the highlights if we designed prioritising the needs of blind people we'd actually design smarter, safer and more efficient cities. Why do we build stairs when there could just be ramp? Why is there not always disabled facilities in every public space? Why is the underground still so inaccessible? I appreciate that a lot of these problems take time to change and implement, but what doesn't take a long time to change is our approach to advertising.

I include myself when I say that not being exposed people with disabilities does mean you are unsure how to address the topic. However it is not enough to just see diversity changing in the workforces, we have to push our creative thinking to truly represent the world we live in. So to the strategists, project managers, creatives team, creative directors and ECD’s, I encourage you to push your staff further with their thinking. The next time you have a review and all you see are concepts that consist of a fully abled cast, question why. Why is that the only thing we see and are proposing to our clients? We can't expect to see brands progress if the ideas we're pitching aren't progressive themselves.

A beautiful quote in the film that I want to leave to think about is, "He can’t change the way he looks, but we can change the way we see.".

Let’s start changing the way we see.