{"id":32852,"date":"2010-04-28T10:11:42","date_gmt":"2010-04-28T09:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.corporate-eye.com\/blog\/?p=32852"},"modified":"2021-01-07T19:39:52","modified_gmt":"2021-01-07T18:39:52","slug":"disability-humor-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.corporate-eye.com\/main\/disability-humor-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Can “Disability Humor” Really Work?"},"content":{"rendered":"


<\/p>\n

\"Beyond<\/a><\/div>\n

A television ad has been running in the U.S. to promote disability\/diversity awareness.\u00a0 Watch the spot online<\/a> if you haven\u2019t seen it\u2014but basically, it\u2019s a running (or actually, rolling) gag in which an African American woman in a wheelchair goes through the hallways of her workplace, commenting into the camera about the many types of \u201cdifferent\u201d people in the office.<\/p>\n

One of her co-workers is \u201cFashion Deficient,\u201d another is \u201cCopy Incapable,\u201d and a third has \u201cVolume Control Syndrome.\u201d\u00a0 But, explains the narrator, no one in the office is concerned about labels (not even her own label, which turns out to be \u201cCoffee-making Impaired\u201d) because everyone is appreciated for their individual skills and contributions.\u00a0 A voiceover at the end says \u201cLabels get in the way.\u00a0 Disabilities rarely do.\u201d\u00a0 The viewer is invited to visit thinkbeyondthelabel.com<\/a>, a website designed to educate decision-makers.<\/p>\n

This ad is part of a $4 million campaign that will appear on television, in print, on the web and on billboards, according to the group Health and Disability Advocates (HDA).\u00a0 \u201cThe goal of the humorous, edgy campaign,\u201d according to HDA, \u201c is to change attitudes about hiring people with disabilities, raising awareness of the need for diversity in the workplace, and countering stereotypes about people with disabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

A New York Times<\/em> story on the campaign<\/a> explains that \u201cthe ads are being financed largely by agencies in 30 states that provide employment services as well as health and human services to their citizens who are disabled. The agencies have set a goal of raising $10 million for the campaign\u2019s budget for the full year.\u201d\u00a0 HDA spearheads this coalition, which has chosen to use a bold marketing approach rather than depending on Public Service Announcements to get their point across.\u00a0 According to the Times<\/em> story, the campaign\u2014which is targeted toward senior management, HR staff, and hiring managers\u2014is intended to be \u201con that fine line of provocative but not polarizing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The campaign apparently tested well, and I haven\u2019t found any information about response levels in the couple of months since it launched.\u00a0 I\u2019m honestly not sure whether it\u2019s a good idea or not.\u00a0 But I will say this:\u00a0 I really, really doubt that a \u201chumorous\u201d approach to disability\/diversity would go down well on the corporate website, or in a board room, or\u2014well, I just can\u2019t think of a real<\/em> workplace context in which this approach would seem acceptable.<\/p>\n

And maybe that\u2019s okay, since advertising is a special category of communication, with its own rules and goals.\u00a0 But on the other hand, maybe there can be too much of a disconnect . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A television ad has been running in the U.S. to promote disability\/diversity awareness.\u00a0 Watch the spot online if you haven\u2019t seen it\u2014but basically, it\u2019s a running (or actually, rolling) gag in which an African American woman in a wheelchair goes through the hallways of her workplace, commenting into the camera about the many types of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,25],"tags":[6315,33,2931,41,6314,2111],"class_list":{"0":"post-32852","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-best-practices","8":"category-careers","9":"tag-ada","10":"tag-corporate-communications","11":"tag-corporate-recruiting","12":"tag-corporate-website","13":"tag-disability","14":"tag-diversity","15":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\nDisability - 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