Kudos to Johnson's Baby for its new ad

By Louise Kinross

Johnson's Baby released a new ad that features a child with Down syndrome for Mother's Day. 

It begins with a close-up of a baby's beautiful blue eye, with the line: JOHNSON'S BABY CELEBRATE LOVE AND DIVERSITY.

Then it moves to other baby parts, the toes, chubby fingers stroke a leg, then touch the tummy, hands clasp, and we see the soft skin of the baby's back. Finally, the child's face is revealed, and he smiles. He's a baby with Down syndrome.

WITH A BABY WITH DOWN SYNDROME flashes on the screen. 

According to the Buzzfeed piece linked to above, Johnson's Baby posted the clip on Facebook with this message: "For us and for all mothers, all babies are Johnson's babies."

I love this ad. I love that it conveys the value of every child. I love that Johnson's is including babies that have been marginalized. This is a BIG deal.

I just wish they didn't have to include the child's diagnosis: WITH A BABY WITH DOWN SYNDROME.

The ad speaks for itself. The baby conveys the message of diversity. 

Would a similar ad with an African American baby say: WITH A BABY WITH BROWN SKIN?

Of course not. 

I can't wait to see what kinds of diversity Johnson's Baby brings us next. I hope this is an ongoing series designed to show us the beauty of all children.

The ad was created by Brazilian ad agency DM9.

Read More

Vogue's Paralympics ad fail

By Louise Kinross

Oh dear.

I saw a tweet yesterday about how Vogue Brazil had photoshopped an amputated arm and a prosthetic leg from two Brazilian Paralympians onto fashion models as part of an ad campaign to combat low ticket sales for the Paralympics in Rio.

This struck me as bizarre and offensive.

Can you imagine an ad for Olympic athletes that features fashion model stand-ins?

What, on earth, does being an elite athlete have to do with physical appearance? Or fashion? Nothing!

While I think the idea that any of us can have a disability is a positive one, and perhaps this was the intended effect, replacing the bodies of real athletes with models sends the wrong message.

Diversity is what makes the Paralympics stand out: we watch and celebrate elite athletes with different kinds of bodies and disabilities.  

The Paralympics is one of the few times we get to see people with disabilities in mainstream media.

What message does this ad send to the child who has an amputation? That their arm is more attractive or acceptable when photoshopped onto a different body?

Other countries have produced outstanding ads to promote their Paralympic teams. The reason they work is that they're real and give the athletes the visibility they deserve.

Read More

Troubling message in Italian ad for Down Syndrome Day

By Louise Kinross

Saatchi & Saatchi New York launched this ad yesterday for Italy's CoorDown, a national organization representing people with Down syndrome.  

The ad features American actress and model Olivia Wilde looking in the mirror while a woman narrates: "This is how I see myself. I see myself as a daughter, a sister and a best friend...as a person you can rely on." We see images of Olivia Wilde living her life, at work and play. "I see myself meeting someone that I can share my life with. I see myself as an ordinary person with an important, meaningful, beautiful life." The camera then pans to reveal the real narrator, a young woman with Down syndrome, who asks: "How do you see me?"

I suppose the objective is to make viewers question their judgments about this woman when they assume she's a conventionally beautiful actress, then compare them with their reaction when they realize she's a woman with Down syndrome.

We know from a 2012 French study that adults who say they accept children with Down Syndrome show, at an unconscious level, a negative bias when shown photos of a child with Down syndrome as opposed to a typical child. These negative stereotypes "are the result of social attitudes and values carried by our cultural environment," said lead investigator Claire Enea-Drapeau. "As long as we don't know about them...we are trapped in automatic attitudes or associations. But when you are aware of it, then you can start to struggle."

I suppose the Saatchi & Saatchi ad may wake viewers up to the negative stereotypes they hold when the young woman with Down syndrome is revealed. But then what? How does it challenge those stereotypes? How does it make the viewer think differently about beauty?

And why is a young woman with Down syndrome being compared to a conventionally beautiful actress and model in the first place? Would any of us want our daughters, or any other young woman, to be measured against a Hollywood beauty? 

The young woman in this ad will continue to face the world with features that don't meet Western standards of beauty, and, which we know through the French study, generate automatic stigma.

As a contrast to this ad, I much prefer this one: "Because who is perfect? Get closer." To honour International Day of Persons with Disabilities in 2014, shop windows in Zurich displayed mannequins with the shapes, curves and height of real people with amputations, short stature and a curved spine (see photo below). Meticulous measurements were taken and drawings made of each model's body and limbs, so that exact replicas could be produced. This campaign communicates the value of real bodies, real people.

Unfortunately, the young woman with Down syndrome in the Saatchi & Saatchi ad is not even named in the AdWeek article. According to a director from Saatchi & Saatchi: "This year we're thrilled to work with world-class artists including director Reed Morano and actress Olivia Wilde."

Wouldn't respect start with including the young woman with Down syndrome in the actual story? Naming her? After all, it's her story, right? Not Olivia Wilde's.

This reader comment on the Youtube video sums up the discomfort I feel watching this ad: "Disabled people shouldn't have to imagine they do not look disabled to be beautiful...Disabled people are beautiful exactly as they are...this is erasure and violence to disabled women."

It sickens me to imagine what on earth the young woman with Down syndrome took away from this experience. How is this ad going to help that woman feel comfortable in her own skin, let alone other people with Down syndrome who watch it?

The ad is being launched for World Down Syndrome Day March 21.

Read More

'Have no fear' doesn't apply in advertising

By Louise Kinross

"You've got to see this video," a friend of mine messaged me. "It's for that new song Renegades. I had no idea what it was about and it's so cool."

I pulled the video by X-Ambassadors up (they play the Air Canada Centre this Saturday). 

It leads in with a blind athlete talking about growing up with a disability and how she learns through touch. Then there's footage of a couple of guys navigating their environment outside with white canes, and a handful of guys with canes hiking on the side of a mountain. 

"It's not a matter of enjoying it more or less," one tells us as we watch athletes with amputations wrestling, boxing, working out. There's a guy with amputations of all limbs who crawls along a trail. Other folks just look like your average Joe in a gym. "It's about enjoying it differently. It's enjoying it through a different vision, through another lens."

Whoa. This is not your typical music video. It doesn't include the conventionally beautiful dancers, models or actors you might expect to see.

Later in the video the band emerges from a vehicle and is lead by keyboard player Casey Harris, wearing his signature dark glasses. He's blind and uses a cane.

On The Today Show lead singer Sam Harris, Casey's brother, described Renegades as being "about people who defy the odds, who are unafraid of being different, and it's a celebration of that."

I'd read that Fiat Chrysler used the song in its marketing campaign for the new Jeep Renegade.

I hopped over to the Jeep commercial, eager to see how they were marketing the idea of people who embrace the different or difficult: the renegades, mutineers, underdogs, pioneers, rebels, new kids and outlaws referred to in the song.

I'm not sure which video was produced first, but the commercial one is filled with actors who fit Hollywood notions of beauty and ability. 

I couldn't help feeling it was a tremendous missed opportunity. This article about the commercial in AdWeek doesn't even mention the bold inclusion message of the band's video. 

"Go forth and have no fear" is a line in the Renegades song.

How can we encourage companies to push the envelope when it comes to making people with differences visible in product launches? What about ad agencies?

Here's a still image from the commercial, of what appears to be a professional dancer. Now go back and watch the band's video. Which is the true rebel?

Read More