With only one in four TV ads being subtitled in the UK and less than one in 10 with audio description, there is much progress for advertisers to make in creating more accessible advertising.
An ad industry alliance has launched a major new resource designed to assist the industry in making advertising accessible to all.
The Ad Accessibility Alliance has today (28 January) announced a new website designed to be a valuable resource to anyone in the advertising industry looking to make progress towards making their work more accessible.
The Alliance was originally brought together by FMCG business P&G and Egta (the international trade body of multiplatform TV and audio businesses). The group is now being led by ISBA in the UK and Union des Marques (UDM) in France.
The imperative to make advertising more accessible is a business-focused one, as well as a moral one. By ensuring your advertising is accessible to everyone in society, brands can effectively broaden their media reach.
In the UK, one in three adults are deaf, have hearing loss or tinnitus, equating to 18 million people across the company. A further two million people are blind or partially sighted. This means that, without considering accessibility needs, UK advertisers could be excluding as many as one in three consumers from their advertising.
Despite the scale of reach that greater accessibility could bring, only one in four TV ads in the UK are currently subtitled, and less than one in 10 have audio description. This means that millions of people in the UK could be being excluded from receiving advertising they might otherwise be interested in.
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The new resource hub is available to anyone in the industry. It provides users with examples of best practices, guidance and practical steps to create more accessible advertising. What accessibility in advertising entails varies based on disability and access need, as well as where the ad appears.
The Alliance identifies digital and broadcast media as the channels where improvements can be made for the most people. It identifies the largest challenges for consuming audio-visual ads as being deafness and hearing loss, blindness and partial sight, and neurodiversity. Making these changes does not have to be overly complex, with improving accessibility for people with hearing loss as simple as adding subtitles.
The group is also using today’s launch of the resource hub as a chance to make a call-to-action for the industry, urging all those in advertising to pledge their efforts towards making advertising accessible for all.
ISBA director general Phil Smith credits big advertisers like P&G, Diageo and Mars in throwing their weight behind the issue.
“When so many people have restricted hearing and sight and are used to content either broadcast or online being accessible, it’s imperative that advertising is also delivered to them in a way they can understand,” says Smith. “As an industry we should not be comfortable with the status quo and should view accessible advertising as a social and business necessity.”
P&G Europe chief brand officer Taide Guajardo has been one of the prominent marketers advocating for more accessible advertising, and P&G, as mentioned, was one of the original convenors of the alliance.
“Today’s announcement demonstrates how we, alongside the Ad Accessibility Alliance, are making inclusion the standard across every interaction with our brands,” says Guajardo. “Whether you’re at the beginning of your journey, or have been on the path for a while, I invite you all to take advantage of the resource hub we have launched. It will make a big difference.”
