EACA calls for greater co-operation between agencies & disabled organisations   

Brussels, 24 June 2003:-  A call for greater co-operation between advertising agencies and disabled organisations was issued by EACA Director-General Dominic Lyle at  the European Congress on Media & Disability organised for the EU by the European Disability Forum, in Athens 13-14 June 2003.  EACA will be producing new guidelines for its members on the portrayal of people with disabilities in commercial communications.

“There are at least two ways in which the advertising industry contributes to discrimination”, said Lyle.  “Firstly, people with disabilities are excluded and, in some instances, deliberately ignored by mainstream advertisers and advertising agencies. Besides hiding disability from the general public, this is a clear denial of the role of people with disabilities as consumers. 

“Secondly, some advertisers, notably charities, present a particularly distorted view of disability and people with disabilities in order to raise money.  In both cases people with disabilities are the losers.”

Advertising has an important role to play in the portrayal of people with disabilities in the media. By including disabilities in its creative output, advertising will help society gradually come to recognise that disability is not limited to just a few people in an insubstantial minority but that it is a normal and substantial part of the society in which we live. 
 
Good disability images and well produced advertisements are designed to promote brand loyalty and make a product more popular. Recent research has shown that the disabled consumer is very much more brand loyal than other consumers. Advertisers are realizing that the people with disabilities buy soap, milk, jewelery, use travel services,  just like other consumers.

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There are some barriers that advertising can help overcome, such as raising visibility,  acclimatisation to overcome the common feeling of isolation that the disabled have by showing examples of interaction between people with disabilities and non-disabled people, and challenging expectations of low capability.

Because there is a high proportion of people in society who have a disability, there is clearly an opportunity for advertisers to create a richer depiction of any target audience by including people with disabilities in their campaigns some of the time. Using and showing disability in different ways will 'loosen up' the territory.

“The business community, including the advertisers and agencies, must be better informed on disability issues”, concluded Lyle.  “If the business community were better educated about the size and potential of the market, then advertising campaigns with the disabled consumer in mind would be created more often.   And this would benefit everyone, the advertisers, the agencies, the charities, and most particularly the people with disabilities themselves.

“I hope this conference will be the first step in a more fruitful co-operation among all the parties concerned, the clients and their agencies, the regulators and the disability organisations”.  
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For further information, please contact:

Dominic Lyle, EACA, 			++ 32 2 740 0711 / mobile ++ 32 475 703 183  

Note to editors:

Copies of the full presentation can be found on www.eaca.be

The European Association of Communications Agencies (EACA) is a Brussels-based organisation whose mission is to represent full-service advertising and media agencies and agency associations in Europe. 

EACA aims to promote honest, effective advertising, high professional standards, and awareness of the contribution of advertising in a free market economy and to encourage close co-operation between agencies, advertisers and media in European advertising bodies.
	                	Press Release
	 	June 2003