Accessibility in Advertising - The Huge Marketing Problem that’s Easily Solved

When you get into the details, many “niche” issues aren’t niche at all. Accessible advertising - using inclusive design practices that allow users of all abilities to fully experience your brand - is one such case. As our CEO Hannah Mirza discussed with ISBA’s Bobi Carley and Google’s Casey Hendricks at our recent MAD//Fest panel, Accessible by Design: How Marketers Can Champion Accessible Marketing, accessibility is not something marketers can afford to ignore. 

Across Europe, 30m people live with visual impairment - 2.5m of them are blind and many more partially sighted - while 190 million people have some hearing loss or deafness. That means vast numbers rely on descriptive audio and captioning if they are to access consumer media. When marketers consider the scale of the audience they are missing out on if they ignore it, clearly accessible marketing is no niche issue. 

Nonetheless, it’s a problem. Only around 25% of ads on UK TV have subtitles, while just 1% carry audio description. Both are currently only possible for ads on linear TV, but given the minor adjustment required to add text to ads, Bobi, ISBA’s Diversity & Inclusion Co-Lead, was categorical: “I don’t see any reason why 100% of ads can’t be subtitled,” she said. 

ISBA has been pushing hard to get accessible advertising on the agenda for advertisers, producing a guide dedicated to the issue and championing advertisers such as Diageo, P&G, Mastercard and Unilever who have taken the lead on accessibility in advertising. 

Broadcasters also came in for praise. ITV, together with Guinness, this year trialled audio description for the Guinness Six Nations - “and honestly, if you can do that, then any ad is going to be a piece of cake,” said Bobi - while Channel 4 is preparing a major accessibility push around its Paralympics coverage.  

Google, meanwhile, has made important contributions of its own. Casey, Google Brands’ Senior Global Insights and Analytics Lead, described how it highlighted the Guided Frame feature of its Pixel 8 camera with its 2024 Super Bowl commercial, which was created by visually impaired director Adam Morse and followed a partially blind man named Javier. The ad has been viewed 50m times. 

There was universal agreement on a central principle: that for ads to be more inclusive and accessible, those goals need to be built in at the earliest possible stage of planning.