Can digital technology have the power to increase the employment of people living with disability?
Yes. And that's very good news because with new solutions come new possibilities. Digital technology allows people with a disability to communicate, move, adapt to new tools and new work environments, accelerate accessibility within businesses and organizations and bring new breakthroughs every single day. However, there still exists one major obstacle to the employment of disabled people: mentalities.
That's the sad answer that LADAPT is telling in its new ad created by BETC Paris. According to a 2022 study by the French Department of Labor, one out of three private companies with 20+ employees don't have any person with disabilities within their employees.
The creative work was produced by the AI Studio General Pop (Prose on Pixels) and was entirely directed by prompt artist and music video director Jamie Jarley. The film was created with the help of artificial intelligence. The first 55 seconds of the video are made of tens of thousands of still images animated in a way to give the impression of a visual whirlwind. It shows a world without limits where technology and digital make almost everything possible: particle accelerators, 3D food impression, atomic data storage, spatial exploration... But the return to real life is quite shocking especially when you realize that, all along, the narrator of the film was a man with a severe disability that was turned away from a job opportunity talking within the halls of the company that denied him.
The use of artificial intelligence here is a way of demonstrating how everything can become possible with the help of technology. The all-out effort is paired with an original soundtrack produced by Capitaine Plouf and scored by recording artist DeLaurentis, who created the music using digital audio tools and artificial intelligence.
This campaign is also extended in radio and in print through a series of portraits of people living with visible and invisible disabilities. These print ads keep the overall theme of the film and question society on its own contradictions: how come technology opens doors but doesn't allow everybody to find employment.
LADAPT and BETC Paris thank actors Jeremy, Medhi, John, Haya and Capucine for being involved with the campaign and the artists that made it all possible: director Jamie Harley, musician DeLaurentis along with Guillaume Le Guen at Capitaine Plouf and photographer Dorian Prost.