How a Paralympian is Changing the Industry’s Representation Game
20% of Australians are living with a form of disability.
That is approximately five million people out of the 25 million living in the country as a whole. Five million people is almost the entire population of New Zealand.
And yet, the media world still so often fails to represent those living with a disability. Without proper representation within the media, those living with a disability are subject to discrimination and harassment caused by misinformation and a lack of understanding.
Dylan Alcott, the Australian Paralympic Athlete, is seeking to change this lack of representation with The Shift 20 initiative. Partnering with Special’s Peter Cvetkovski and Adam Ferrie, the team worked together with brands to enhance already existing spots by adding the much needed representation.
LBB’s Casey Martin spoke with Special’s creative directors, Peter and Adam on the two year journey in making this initiative a reality.
LBB> The advertising industry has more influence than people realise: we’ve seen it when it comes to political campaigns and the lipstick effect during times of recession. As the people with the job to convince the public that what they are saying matters more than the competitor, why do you believe it has taken so long for the industry to acknowledge a massive 20% of Australia’s population?
Adam> We know that whilst brands want to include people with disabilities in their ads, they fear they’ll get it wrong – so they don’t. Furthermore, it’s logistically harder to execute in this way due to a lack of infrastructure to accommodate people with disabilities.
Peter> It’s only when brands make the shift to include diverse talent and show true representation that they build deeper connections with their audience. For example, in Dove's Real Beauty campaign, the brand chose to tackle the unrealistic portrayals of beauty and its damaging effects on women after they found only 2% of women worldwide would choose to describe their look as beautiful. With that in mind, it's only when these alarming statistics are brought to the forefront, we can work towards driving change, leading to more brands following suit.
LBB> A rise in individual content creation on social media is providing an impactful platform to those who otherwise would be looked over by traditional media, in particular the likes of Heartbreak High star, Chloé Hayden and obviously, Dylan Alcott. How can brands learn from those creators and most importantly, The Shift 20 Initiative?
Peter> It’s by listening to lived experiences, we can make better choices and inspire others to do the same. Furthermore, when you place yourself in the shoes of someone with a disability, your perspective on the world begins to shift and you start to look at things differently.
Adam> It’s about creating marketing communications with diverse audiences in mind and encouraging your team to look for opportunities to make a shift. You’ll be surprised to find there's lots of ways you can make advertising communications more accessible. From representation of talent, to type face choices, to colour contrast, the list goes on.
Even if it’s a small shift, it’s still a shift in the right direction.
LBB> How has the initiative grown over the two-year development? What have been the key learnings taken from the time spent on the initiative?
Adam> From the beginning, we knew we needed to do something bold that made a statement, and more importantly, created real change with an ongoing impact. It was imperative that this did not just become a flash in the pan moment, or an opportunity to ‘virtue signal’ but rather, to get brands involved and commit to working towards increasing representation, inclusion and accessibility for people with disability.
We’ve been overwhelmed with the widespread support from the industry and the number of partner brands who have jumped on board. We’re also in discussions with more brands. The more conversation that’s generated around the issue of accessibility in the industry, the more brands will continue to get on board.
Peter> We found every brand is different when it comes to increasing representation, inclusion and accessibility. Some hope to evolve the way they represent people in their brand communications. Some aim to enhance accessibility with their packaging. And some wish to optimise their user experience for mobile platforms with diversity and inclusion in mind. All brands want to do more in this space, they just need guidance and support to make sure they’re doing the right thing and representing people with disability in the right way. That’s where this initiative comes in and why we encourage everyone reading this to visit shift20.org.
LBB> Talk us through the process of re-shooting and the strategy behind incorporating those with disabilities into already very well-known spots, why not create completely new ones?
Adam> A traditional shoot is one thing. Here, we were taking existing well known ads and swapping out something that has already been. It was about replicating that scene as closely as possible to ensure a seamless transition. So when you see them side by side, they were identical except for the fact that the talent was replaced.
Peter> We were also mindful that the talent had to remain true, believable and authentic to the current spots to show how easily someone with a disability could play the same role. To achieve this, we worked closely with our production partners The Glue Society and Revolver, and in some cases reached out to the original production teams for assets to ensure we worked as closely as possible to the existing storyboards.
LBB> And finally, what does the future look like?
Adam> The aim of the Shift 20 initiative is to increase representation of people with disability in advertising, with a goal of getting to a more accurate representation of the population by 2028.
Peter> We hope by setting the standard for what disability representation looks like and providing the tools and resources, we can make an ongoing change to our industry.
Ultimately, our goal is that the Shift 20 Initiative ceases to exist. Because once this initiative has done its job, representation of people with disability will have become as normalised, as it should be.
