All Access. • Finding The Words

About This Episode

Last November, Apple released a short film titled "The Greatest," which follows seven people throughout what is considered an average day, with an all-disabled cast, representing the authentic experiences of each cast member as they engage in various daily tasks, showcasing how Apple's suite of accessibility tools enables them to, as Forbes writes, navigate a world that wasn't designed with their needs in mind. It gives us a lot to thinking about.

This week’s essay comes from the Finding The Words column, a series published every Wednesday that delivers a dose of communication insights direct to your inbox. If you like what you read, we hope you’ll subscribe to ensure you receive this each week.

Like this episode? Read this article in our weekly Finding the Words column.

• Episode Transcript

  Carrie Fox:

  Hey, everybody, and welcome to the Mission Forward podcast. I'm your host, Carrie Fox, a social impact communicator, a B corporation leader and founder of Mission Partners. And it is summertime, which is a great time to catch up on some podcasts that you may have missed.

  Well, we're going to make it easy for you. Because this summer, while we are busy working on fantastic new content for the fall, we are bringing you a lineup of our favorite and most-listened-to episodes to help you advance your work as a communicator for change. Every other week, we'll bring you a short form essay from my Finding the Words column. So join us starting this week for some of my favorite conversations with some of my most special people, and then head over to missionforward.us to keep engaging with this show's content and guests.

  Oh, and by the way, be sure to give our show a like or a follow as it helps us get this show into even more heads and hearts just like yours. Now onto this week's episode.

  So last November, Apple released a short film titled The Greatest, which follows seven people throughout what is considered an average day for each of them. A set of average days, but hardly an average ad because The Greatest highlights the stories of an all-disabled cast representing the authentic experiences of each cast member as they engage in various daily tasks, showcasing how Apple's suite of accessibility tools enables them to, as Forbes writes, "navigate a world that wasn't designed with their needs in mind." From an influencer to a pianist, a veterinarian to a high school student, a mom and a music producer, the diverse range of personalities represented in this film deliver a story that is upbeat, positive, joyful to watch and, most importantly, real.

  The ad caught my eye after I heard it won as a top campaign of 2022 by Adweek, and it's kept my attention because of how well it shows what technology can do, particularly showcasing the often under-recognized features of Apple technology through an even more often under-recognized population on the big screen, people with disabilities.

  According to Nielsen's 2021 Ad Intel Report, 26% of Americans are disabled, but they're featured in only 1% of primetime TV ads. So that stat is pretty striking, 1% of ads, as it reinforces the power that advertisers hold to mitigate bias and stereotypes. Turns out it's the same amount of power required to reinforce those bias and stereotypes. It just depends on how that power is used.

  So what if, you know I love that question, what if the power was used in the greatest way possible? What if? What if more advertisers, marketers and communicators dared to ask what's possible on camera, as Apple did, while also daring to ask what's possible behind the camera, too? Let me give you a story.

  Unilever, one of the world's largest advertisers, they did ask, and they found that 73% of people with disabilities feel disenfranchised from the production industry. So as part of their act to unstereotype initiative, they just launched a new Believe in Talent effort, which requires that at least one person with a disability works on the crew for any production exceeding a hundred thousand dollars. So that's estimated to amount to about 70% of Unilever's brand ads.

  The initiative aims to show the industry that it can be even more successful when differently-abled people are sitting in decision-making seats of power. Here's how Unilever says it. They say, "This shift can help influence the next generation of people to be free from prejudice and to make real structural changes to the entire marketing process." End quote.

  When taken together, meaningful shifts to internal practices like at Unilever and external messages like that Apple ad can lead to real and lasting change. There's no one-and-done strategy to advance a more just and equitable world. Instead, it requires practice, day after day, until these skills begin to feel like average tasks.

  Bottom line, whether you are an advertiser, a fundraiser, or a digital strategist, developing inclusive and equitable communications practices require three things, care, courage and clarity, none of which can be achieved without an actual and authentic perspective first.

  That brings us to the end of this short form episode of Mission Forward. If you heard something that's going to stick with you, drop me a line at carrie@mission.partners, and let me know what's got you thinking, and definitely check out some of our longer form shows on the power of communications.

  Mission Forward is produced with the support of Sadie Lockhart in association with TruStory FM, engineering by Pete Wright. If your podcast app allows for ratings and reviews, I hope you'll consider doing just that for this show. But the best thing you can do to support Mission Forward is simply to share the show with a friend or a colleague. Thanks for your support, and we'll see you next time.