We’re proud to announce that Clearcast was awarded the first ever ‘Social lmpact Award’ for our #AdsForAll campaign at the EASA 2024 Best Practice Awards ceremony last night.
The gala dinner took place at the House of Lords in London and brings together its members, partners and stakeholders from the advertising and self-regulatory world.
These awards celebrate self-regulatory organisations (SROs) that demonstrate excellence and innovation in applying the EASA Best Practice Model for self-regulation.
‘Social Impact’ is a new category, inspired by point 5 of the EASA 30th Anniversary Declaration and is awarded to a ‘project or action that contributes to promoting attitudes and behaviours that help respond to global challenges such as sustainability, diversity, social inclusion or equality’.
EASA said;
“The “#AdsForAll” campaign by Clearcast, launched in November 2022, successfully enhanced TV ad accessibility for individuals with hearing loss by promoting subtitles and fostering collaboration within the industry. This resulted in increased awareness and the establishment of Clearcast as a key resource in accessibility.“
The #AdsForAll campaign
Our #AdsForAll campaign was launched in early 2023 with the following objectives:
- Increase awareness about the unknown levels of accessible ads
- Understand more about current practices and possible barriers
- Encourage more reporting within the industry
- Encourage advertisers and agencies to make more ads accessible
Our initiatives included:
- Identifying attitudes, existing practices, and barriers through a survey, then sharing our findings and initial recommendations
- Raising awareness through accessible events like the British Arrows
- Raising awareness and offering guidance through Clearcast’s website and social accounts as well as industry publications (Campaign)
- Raising awareness with our ‘Focus Fortnights’ around accessible calendar events like GAAD & Deaf Awareness Week, asking copy and ops staff to have accessibility discussions with their agencies.
- Educating, by providing training for the industry
- Promoting better data-tracking behaviours by adding new functionality to The Library (our clearance system)
The project was amplified and supported by Channel 4, ITV, Sky, IPA, ISBA, Thinkbox, Advertising Association, British Arrows, egta, RNIB, and RNID. A huge thanks to our friends at these organisations for your support and passion.
“Clearcast have been first and foremost in championing the accessible advertising agenda. They’re driving forward education and technical changes and working collaboratively with the industry to drive long-lasting change.”
– Bobi Carley, Head of Media and Diversity & Inclusion Lead at ISBA.
“I really enjoyed that you made sure to include the voices/opinions of disabled people. In this way, the training hit a lovely balance.”
– Beth, Tviva Ltd
Through our passion for accessible ads and the work we’ve done collaboratively in the industry, we’ve become established as an organisation that is a central source for accessibility insights, data, expertise and training. We’re really hopeful that accessible advertising will become the norm in the not so distance future, and are here to continue pushing this agenda forward.
A huge congratulations to the other winners from across the participating European SROs! The competition was strong. Now we’re just off to polish our award.
