There are roughly 11 million people in the UK with some form of hearing impairment and 2 million with visual impairments.
That’s 19% of the UK.
The UK population consists of 67 million people in the UK (2021).
This means a fairly large proportion of the population has some form of visual or hearing impairment.
TV is considered one of the most effective media channels to help influence cultural norms, create societal change and shape opinions, which means it’s key in helping make advertising more accessible.
Various advertisers have used TV to create more accessible adverts as well as increase the diversity of their actors.
A great example is the Maltesers’ advert using deaf actors and sign language in their ‘The Light Side of Disability’.
Here are three ways to make TV adverts more accessible:
- Sign language
- Subtitles or closed captions
- Adding audio descriptions.
Back in 2021, Channel 4 partnered with the Royal National Institute for Blind People (RNIB) to allow them to team up with a variety of brands such as Airbnb and Virgin Media to produce an ‘Audio Description Ad-Break’ takeover.
The takeover aimed to show how providing additional commentary helps those with visual ailments. Read more about it here.
There’s currently no evidence of how this helps brand perceptions, but ultimately this would benefit a sometimes ‘forgotten’ and ‘ignored’ audience.
Would you change creatives to make your advert more accessible?
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