Disability-Inclusive: Making Space for Meaningful Marketing
Worldwide Partners is one of the largest and fastest-growing independent agency networks, composed of the most progressive, creative and diverse marketing talent in the world. Headquartered in Denver, the Worldwide Partners (WPI) model is designed to help agencies learn from and grow through one another, in a bid to enact real change in the world. Ask any of the innovative agencies in the WPI network if marketing to the disabled community deserves further care and attention and they will likely agree there is a need for more inclusivity across the board. One of the agencies going above and beyond to get this done is Doable.
Launching in the summer of 2023, Doable is an independent accessibility-focused creative agency dedicated to bringing about tangible change for disabled consumers and creatives.
“What the advertising industry perceives as a successful connection with a disabled audience is not quite the same as what a disabled audience perceives it as,” says Doable founding partner, Hugh Boyle.
“There’s a widely-held view in the disabled community that the advertising industry portrays disability in one of two ways only: ’Super-human’ (Paralympian amputee winning Gold) or ’Sub-human’ (Child in wheelchair, appealing for money). Both of these archetypes are not only untypical, but also somewhat harmful. As such, at Doable our perception of a successful connection is when disability is shown as normal, not a source of inspiration or pity for others.”
Altering Perceptions
Founded and staffed by employees with disabilities, Doable aims to change the perception of disabled consumers by improving inclusivity of disabled talent across the creative industry. “Given that 20% of the adult population lives with a disability and that some 15 million disabled adults work in professional employment, clearly the appropriate talent for advertising and marketing agencies is out there in these groups,” Hugh points out, “It is therefore unthinkable that our industry is so far removed from this vibrant and important portion of the population, and it shows us that there’s a real problem to solve here.”
Considering the myriad of benefits that influxes of new talent brings to the creative industries, Hugh is adamant that creatives with disabilities deserve to be welcomed into the industry on the basis of their prodigious talent and potential, just like everyone else.
Doable believes the benefits of fostering a more disability inclusive agency environment will result in a better understanding of and access to a $480 billion market of consumers with disabilities that is largely untapped. “Together we can craft better work informed by different perspectives,” says Hugh.
The tenets by which Doable conducts business is, by its very definition, exactly what Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) stands for. In recent years the DEIB acronym has become somewhat of a buzzword, making it difficult to distinguish between virtue signalling and tangible change.
With an oversaturation of DEIB policies popping up everywhere, how can brands and agencies authentically connect with disabled audiences? “Research, research, research!” is Hugh’s advice. “An agency would never pitch for, let’s say, a piece of babycare business without working closely with a research and insights partner to understand the behaviours, sentiments and needs of new parents. As such, any brand seeking to make meaningful connections with consumers with disabilities must do the same thing.”
Research is exactly what Danish agency, Advance, base their creative solutions on in order to understand the needs of people with disabilities. “We prefer to do in-depth interviews with representatives from the target group to make sure we truly understand what drives their needs and behaviour – it is an important part of our research,” explains co-CEO Ann-Louise Rosen. “I believe that we, as an agency, should always try to help our clients create content that represents the diversity of our society.”
Advance has been implementing these research strategies throughout their 14 year partnership with healthcare company, Coloplast. The most notable collaboration is their work on the global launch campaign of Coloplast’s cutting-edge ostomy appliance. Based on extensive research, Advance developed a campaign concept centred on real stories, with no actors used.
Together, Advance and Coloplast assembled a toolbox of global marketing assets that would resonate with healthcare professionals and ostomy users around the world. The inclusion of real life testimonials proved to be the best way to demonstrate the product’s ability to improve patients’ lives.
Straight from the Source
Another agency dedicated to forging disability inclusive creative environments is SPARK. Committed to seeking out the truth at the heart of any creative brief, DEIB principles are embedded in every campaign the agency works on. “We take time to understand the audience - their needs, behaviours, and opportunities - and make a clear business and brand case for why and how this audience should be spoken to in a compelling and authentic way,” reveals Dulani Porter, partner and EVP of SPARK.
