P&G’s Taide Guajardo and ISBA’s Phil Smith Aim to Ensure All Ads Are Accessible to People with Hearing or Vision Loss 

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that one out of every thirteen people have enough hearing or vision impairment to depend on captioning and descriptive audio for their media use.  By 2050, WHO also anticipates that 2.5 billion people will be living with some degree of hearing loss. While these statistics may seem overwhelming, the Ad Access Alliance, a group led by ISBA and Union des Marques, under the aegis of the WFA, with founding member Procter & Gamble, is joining forces with others in the advertising ecosystem to ensure all ads are accessible to people with hearing or visual impairments.

In addition to P&G, Diageo, Mars, Mastercard, L’Oréal, and Unilever have now joined the Alliance.

Taide Guajardo, Chief Brand Officer Europe at P&G, and Phil Smith, Director General of ISBA, or the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers, discuss an ambitious program to make all content accessible to everyone. While they advocate that such a move is good for consumers, advertisers, and the marketplace, they also discuss current obstacles and a framework for moving forward.

Click for a Clip from the Interview

Source: Extreme Reach, 102 markets, 800k creative assets, 7.8m ad deliveries

THE ISSUE

Procter & Gamble’s research (2023 Radius Study conducted in the UK, France, and Germany) shows that a shocking 45% of people with hearing or sight loss feel excluded from advertising. As a result, they say they cannot make informed purchase decisions.

The research also demonstrated:

• More than half, 61%, of those with hearing or sight loss face a significant challenge—they cannot comprehend the information intended for them in advertising. This is a real struggle for many people.
• 58% wished they had more access to information to explain products and services better and to help them feel more comfortable with their purchase choices.
• 34% of people with these impairments explained that they rely on the help of friends and family to understand information within advertisements.
• 75% of people with hearing or sight loss would like companies to be more proactive in making their advertising accessible to all.

It is estimated that less than 10% of advertising is currently accessible.  

“This is a significant missed opportunity to serve consumers better,” says Taide Guajardo. “Just imagine needing your partner or parent to be certain you are choosing the right toothpaste or feminine hygiene product!” 

VIEW AN ACCESSIBILITY-ENAMBLED AD FROM P&G

CLICK for the UK’s Pampers “Premature Nappy” commercial with Audio Description

BARRIERS

According to Phil Smith, ISBA’s latest work phase has focused on identifying the barriers across the entire advertising creation process and ideating potential solutions to help the industry overcome those barriers. “We recognize there is work to do in the nuance, but our most significant hurdles are building awareness and business buy-in and providing the industry with the knowledge and skills to get the work done. However, what’s evident is that any barrier at any stage can prevent the results we are seeking.”

From the Brief through Strategy to Creative and then Delivery, Barriers to Accessibility include:

• Lack of Awareness or Buy-in
• Lack of Skill or Tools
• Lack of Consistency
• Lack of Compliance Process
• Lack of Media Capability

REFRAME

ISBA has published education to help advertisers get started with Accessibility. Called REFRAME, the information focuses on the importance of integrating accessibility throughout the campaign development process, and how a marketer can do so immediately by using subtitles and audio description. REFRAME highlights some key, practical actions that make TVC & Cinema advertising more accessible to people with any hearing or visual impairment through ISBA’s ACT (Accountability, Collaboration & Trading) Framework.

“Soon we will be able to offer guidance on briefing creative teams and partners as well as information around broadcast capability in the UK,” explains Phil Smith.

“Next quarter we aim to share quick wins and a view of digital capability. By the end of the year, we plan to release a document aggregating and summarizing best practice for advertising to accelerate progress. Throughout this year, we will be blueprinting and enabling this work to begin for more media and more markets. And we welcome conversations about getting that work started.”

In our conversation, we discuss the following:

• Would you both tell us a little more about the origins of this initiative?

• Taide, could you briefly discuss P&G’s philosophy of growing markets and the need to reach all consumers? 

• Taide, ad accessibility is clearly important to a marketer like P&G, but you also talk about barriers to advertisers. Would you explain?

• Taide, could you outline how P&G has set accessibility targets for all your businesses over the past eighteen months?

• Phil… you’ve spent a lot of time understanding the media issues involved in accessibility. Talk about that… I also know that you have some national data on closed captioning and audio descriptions.

• Also, to Taide’s point about barriers, Phil, you’ve cited the Global Accessibility Maturity Index. I found this fascinating from an international perspective….

• Phil… tell us about the UK broadcast task force and “reframe.”

• Now, as we wrap up, would you both tell us what’s next in your efforts? And how perhaps others can help?

The Ad Access Alliance brings together industry partners, including advertisers, agencies, digital publishers, and trade bodies, to bridge the accessibility gap in advertising.

ISBA’s UK Broadcast Taskforce also includes Ad Agencies (WPP, PHD, AMV BBDO, and Current Global), Broadcasters (Channel 4, ITV, and Sky Media), and other Clearance/Delivery Partners (Adtext, Clearcast, and Peach in addition to XR- Extreme Reach)

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