Societal marketing: awkward no more – ‘disability has never had it so good’

For many, 2016 seemed to speed into reverse gear. First, there was Brexit, then there was Trump. Both acts seemed to represent a wider malaise within society, seemingly turning different groups against each other, with many from minority groups often feeling the brunt. Disability has not been immune from this and indeed has often been cast to the fringes of society.

But let’s take a step back for a minute. Disability has undoubtedly entered the mainstream. What’s even more remarkable is that this change has happened in the last five years. We of course need to go back to 2012. The Paralympic Games in London was a watershed moment for disability. It was the first Paralympic Games to capture the attention of both a national and global audience. It produced packed out arenas – selling 2.7 million tickets (nearly a million more than Beijing the previous four years.) It was also the first Games to have a global audience as it was broadcast in more than 100 countries.

At home, the impact of the Games went much further, with Channel 4 spearheading the change. Its ‘Superhumans’ ad made people sit up and think differently about disability. It crushed perceptions about pity and instead portrayed disabled people as supremely talented individuals.

But it went further than that; Channel 4’s entire coverage elevated the Games like never before. In particular, its daily highlights show ‘The Last Leg’ caught the nation’s attention. A mix of sports and light entertainment show, it used a combination of humour and wit to touch on some of the more difficult subjects around disability.

Of course, it hasn’t stopped there. Last year saw Rio host another successful Paralympic Games. The Last Leg has gone from strength to strength, earning itself a prime-time 8pm slot and an average audience of 1.8 million (nearly 50% up from 2012.) Perhaps most importantly, it has turned a host of Paralympic stars into household names – names such as Johnnie Peacock, Hannah Cockcroft and Ellie Simmonds.

As if to further underline this, the recent World Parathletics in London sold more tickets than the previous eight championships combined. And it’s not just limited to UK shores, with the likes of Tatyana McFadden, Alan Oliveira and Marcel Hug all becoming names which roll off the tongue.

But stepping away from the track and the pace of change hasn’t slowed. Representations of disability are now appearing in everything from ads for chocolate to bookies. Grey London and the charity Scope were quick to build on the success of the Paralympics. They recognised that everyday issues around disability still needed to be tackled – that a level of awkwardness sometimes existed between disabled and able-bodied people.

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It launched the End the Awkward campaign, fronted by The Last Leg host Alex Brooker, and aimed to break down some of the barriers faced by disabled people. It won plaudits for the way it realistically portrayed disability and used humour to tackle some challenging issues, for example how to shake an interviewee with no hand. It was also a campaign which delivered, with 81% of people who saw the campaign prompted to think differently about disability.

Following in a similar vein, Maltesers launched a series of ads last year featuring disabled people. It again attempted to highlight potentially awkward moments, everything from rolling over the best man’s leg to mistaking an orgasm. The campaign was part of a Channel 4 initiative to get disability on our TV screens. It highlighted the broadcaster’s commitment to the issue by offering a million pounds worth of free media (no mean freebie in today’s media landscape.) Now in its second year, Grey and Volvo have come up with the winning idea – this time featuring a non-visible disability.

Grey and Volvo already have a track record here, featuring disability in both their critically-acclaimed ‘Human Made’ series. In ‘Oliver’ and ‘Music of the Mind’, the car brand featured some of the cutting-edge ways people are trying to make society more inclusive for people with disabilities, whether that’s improving prosthetics or getting someone back into the orchestra pit. The technologies around these developments are still in their infancy, but it’s helping to highlight the possibilities.

Sometimes it doesn’t haven’t to be awe-inspiring or challenge perceptions. To coincide with the start of the new football season, Paddy Power’s latest ad features the trials and tribulations of a disabled away fan. It features some gloriously genuine insights such as constantly being faced with people’s bum cracks or the moment an able-bodied person emerges from the disabled loo.

To stick with football, this year’s BBC Sport football spot showed how disability doesn’t even need to be centre of attention at all, briefly cutting to a vignette of a wheelchair fan celebrating (not to mention a group of football mad girls.) Above all, both examples showed how anyone can be a football fan.

Does this mean people get it right every single time? Probably not. BP’s partnership with Paralympic sprinter Richard Whitehead is genuine but its use of a roaming lion in a tower block apartment to show inner strength is probably a bit of a tired metaphor. It seems overcooked. But you get bad ads all the time – whether they are trying to deal with issues of equality (just ask Pepsi) or trying to flog the newest flavour in chocolate bars.

Does this also mean all the issues around disability can be solved? Certainly not. Some of the issues facing disability, whether it’s around work, social policy or simply getting to the pub, are long-standing and challenging. They require structural change within society and will happen over a long period of time. No amount of ads will change that. Sorry! If that is your bag, then you are probably better off in a think tank or the UN.

But what the last five years have shown, or just glimpsed at, is the kaleidoscopic nature of disability. Previously, disability simply failed to exist as a topic on people’s minds (either out of neglect or fear of getting it wrong.) Today, disability is shown in all manner of forms, whether that’s a virtuoso violinist, a footie fan or someone with a non-visible disability. It’s now a topic people feel comfortable to talk about and engage with.

And that’s a massive achievement in itself and one can we can all be immensely proud of. Moreover, the way we choose to depict and represent disability will always be ongoing – disability will never be ‘done’. Nor can it be turned into an exact science – the idea, for example, around on-screen quotas always presents more challenges than it solves. But what we can be sure about is that disability will never drop off the radar again.

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