Audio description has revolutionised the visual medium for millions of blind and visually impaired people around the world. Narration tracks can now be found in any place imaginable; in theatre productions, films, TV shows, museum exhibitions or even video games - audio description has never been more universally accessible than it is today. But the medium of audio description has yet to scale, as brands look to better serve their audiences, and with audio description nearing its 40th anniversary, it’s maybe time to start thinking about how it could be made accessible for everyone.

1. Powered by
What’s Next:
Accessible
Advertising

2. Welcome
Alex Lee
Creative Intern
Ogilvy Pipe
Dayoán Daumont
Consulting Partner
Ogilvy Consulting

3. Tell us
where you
are dialing in
from!
What’s the weather
like in your city?

4. Do you want
this deck?
It will be available for download
shortly after the webinar on:
slideshare.net/socialogilvy
And the recording up on
facebook.com/OgilvyConsulting

5. July 5, 2019
Audio description:
Let’s make advertising accessible

6. Ogilvy Consulting
What is
accessibility?
Accessibility is the process of making a service,
environment, product or device usable and
understandable to people of all abilities and disabilities.

7. July 5, 2019 7
1. What is audio description?
2. A brief history of audio description
3. Where are we today?
4. Why should brands care?
Agenda

8. Why this topic?

10. Where did it all begin?

11. Ogilvy Consulting
1981 - Margaret Pfanstiehl 1988 - Gregory Frazier 1992 – Audio description
added to TV shows
The rest is history....

12. Ogilvy Consulting
Audio description is
everywhere…
Adverts!

13. 300 million
visually
impaired
worldwide
July 5, 2019 13
30 million
visually
impaired in
Europe
500,000 in Australia
7.2 million in Brazil
2 million in the UK
365,000 in the Netherlands
1.2 million in France
1.6 million in Italy
645,000 in Germany
22 million
visually
impaired in
the US
145 million
visually
impaired in
Asia
20 million
visually
impaired in
Africa
There are 1 billion disabled people in the world.

14. Where are we today?

15. Channel 4 in the UK was the first to make an
audio described advert for the Rio 2016
Paralympics.

17. Proctor & Gamble rolled out audio description to
all its brands’ adverts in 2017

19. Ogilvy Consulting
Huge creative
potential

21. Ogilvy Consulting
What else can we do?
ü Regional audio description
ü Tonal audio description
ü Unintelligible ads
ü Dual description ads
ü Honest audio description

22. The advertising landscape
Still in its infancy
Are we going quick enough?
Potential to grow creatively

23. Ogilvy Consulting
Why should brands
care about diversity
and accessibility?

24. Ogilvy Consulting
£249 billion
(UK Family Resources Survey, 2017)

25. Brands have already started
removing barriers for
disabled people

28. 9
Diversity goes hand in hand with
accessibility

29. What is
accessibility?
Accessibility is the process of making a service,
environment, product or device usable and
understandable to people of all abilities and disabilities.

30. Ogilvy Consulting
To recap…
1. Adverts are currently not accessible for the 300 million
people worldwide.
2. Audio description is a medium which hasn’t been explored
creatively.
3. Brands shouldn’t just be thinking about diversity, but also
accessibility.

31. Questions?

32. Thank you.