Beyond the Paralympics: The business case for disability representation

The 2024 Paralympics closed in style on Sunday. The Stade de France in Paris transformed into a huge electronica dance party with the world’s elite para-athletes doing a farewell conga. It was a fitting closing ceremony where a record number of broadcasters covered the event and advertising sales increased by 60% since Tokyo.

However, for Toyota, Apple, Nike and the countless other brands that seized the moment to create campaigns pegged to the event, what’s next? Post-Paralympics, how much will change in terms of disability inclusion in advertising going beyond events like the Paralympics?

In the past, there’s been a pattern of brands targeting the disabled community and doing disability-focused campaigns during the Paralympics, but forgetting about it afterwards. 

Currently, only 1-4% of people represented in advertising campaigns are disabled, a staggeringly low statistic considering that disabled people make up one in five or 20% of the population. Worse still, by failing to include or cater to disabled people, brands are effectively ignoring a group that possesses up to $8 trillion a year in disposable income, according to estimates, and $13 trillion when including friends and family of disabled people.

"The reality is that the Paralympics does not move the needle on disability representation in advertising," says Hugh Boyle, founding partner of Doable and the Consumers with Disabilities Research Foundation. "Once the Paralympics are over, disability fades into the background again."

Boyle launched Doable in the summer of 2023. It's one of the first creative marketing agencies globally that is staffed primarily by talent with disabilities. Boyle himself became disabled two years prior to launching the agency having lost his right leg. After 50 years of an able-bodied life, he saw almost overnight how differently the world treats those with disabilities in the starkest possible way.

"It gave me pause to think about how many colleagues with disabilities I’d ever worked with in the advertising industry across three decades, and the answer was one. Just one,” he says.

Boyle then spent the time looking for creative talent with disabilities on the internet and it was one of the easiest things he'd ever done. He says there was no shortage of talent including videographers, photographers, graphic designers and copywriters. The one thing they all had in common was that they had systematically struggled to find work in the industry.

"What can be concluded is that an industry without even modest representation from the disabled community is inevitably neither going to give disability a huge amount of focus in its work or, when asked to produce work around things like the Paralympics, be resourced appropriately to get that work right," says Boyle.

The disabled community is a year-round market

Looking beyond disability, targeting of other minority groups, including LGBTQ, AAPI, BIPOC and mental health, also seem to be thematic and only talked about when it’s the month or time of the year for it. But Ci En Lee, media strategist at Publicis Media Singapore and author of Short of Nothing, says there is no right time for disability inclusion in advertising.

"Disability inclusion should not be a message: persons with disability should be included and integrated into the narrative rather than being the narrative," says Lee. 

Lee adds that the goal is for disabled people to be seen doing very ordinary things in ads—the things everyone does—because they’re human and resilient.

“We overcome the odds and don’t give up, but we do not have superpowers,” he says.

Martyn Sibley, co-founder and CEO of Purple Goat, a disability-focused marketing agency that uses social media and influencer marketing, says that while we’re moving towards a point where disability inclusion in advertising is becoming more consistent, we’re not there yet. 

"It’s crucial for brands to realise that the disabled community is a year-round market, not just something to tap into during events like the Paralympics," says Sibley. "But it’s encouraging that more brands are beginning to understand the importance of continuous engagement with the disabled community."

Sibley adds that the ongoing underrepresentation of disabled people in ads is caused by a mix of factors. 

"One reason is that disability is often still seen as a niche issue rather than being integral to diversity and inclusion strategies. Brands may also feel uncertain about how to approach disability representation authentically, fearing backlash if they get it wrong,” he adds.

One of the main barriers to better representation of disabled people in advertising is a lack of understanding and awareness within the advertising industry itself.

"Many brands don’t have disabled people in key decision-making positions, which can lead to a lack of insight into how to represent disability authentically," says Sibley. "Another challenge is the fear of getting it wrong—brands are often hesitant to engage with disability in their campaigns because they don’t know how to do it without seeming performative or tokenistic."

But there is hope of real change. Within the industry there has been a number of disability-focused marketing agencies popping up in recent years which indicates there is growing determination to push for a meaningful shift. 

In Australia, one such agency is Disinfluencer, whose services help brands tap into the talent pool of people living with disabilities, while supporting them with paid work.

Simone Eyles is the founder of Disinfluencer. As a marketing professional and a parent to a disabled child, she was frustrated with the lack of representation and started approaching brands offering to do content. In the past month alone, Disinfluencer has had talent on set for no less than seven campaigns.

"I think brands really do want to be inclusive," adds Eyles. "But there has been a gap in the market for the brands to engage with talent. People with disabilities are willing and able and all you need to do is ask them. When we have more big brands leading the way, representation will go from a nice-to-have to an integral part of their brand."

Globally, there is a rise in specialised agencies springing up to cater to the demands for more inclusive marketing. In Canada, Accessibrand connects daily with clients who want a better understanding of accessible marketing.

"From our perspective, brands and companies continue to be interested in reaching people with disabilities," says Jolene MacDonald, founder of Accessibrand. "Being inclusive works for everyone. Many significant advances have been made because of innovative thinking applied to removing barriers for people with disabilities. Virtually all aspects of a smartphone were first developed for people with disabilities."

Yet, while agencies like Accessibrand have seen some improvement, it's still so far behind.

"It is a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing with disability representation," says MacDonald. "For example, very few well-known photo stock companies have authentic, positive portrayals of people with disabilities. Often, people are represented as pitiful or heroic—there is not much in between. Many times, there is a person without a disability posing as someone who is disabled. The equipment is outdated. People with disabilities see this disconnect and feel excluded. Brands need to step up and hold photo shoots to depict people authentically and stop perpetuating a myth and stigma."

If the ads do not shift, our culture does not shift

While representation still lags, there's hope that a turning point is on the horizon.

"I believe that the disabled minority is exactly where other minorities have been in the past," says Boyle. "The pages of history will show that for other minorities it took a societal reckoning (such as #BLM) to jolt the corporate world—the advertising industry included—into better, fairer inclusion and representation."

And ultimately, for Boyle, the goal is to achieve normalcy when it comes to representation of disabled people in advertising and across media more broadly.

"For instance, where’s the breakfast cereal ad in which the family of five (and well-behaved dog) gather in the kitchen for breakfast and one of the kids just so happens to be vision-impaired? We don’t need to call it out, we don’t need to say how brave they are, we just let them get on and eat their breakfast as normal—happy and content in their family life,” he says.

Boyle adds that without treating disability in all of its wide and varied forms as normal and finding the idyllic and aspirational in it too, the industry will continue to fail to serve this community and be guilty of perpetuating ableism. 

"The disabled community is growing, vibrant and desperate to connect with brands who show them some love & respect. It’s a genuine opportunity for brands to widen their reach and engage better with a new group of consumers,” says Boyle.

"To do this [brands] may have to adapt and become more accessible and inclusive. Maybe through some adaptive packaging design or more accessible digital content, but surely that’s okay? Brands are typically excellent at adapting quickly to everything. They pivot and shift when other commercial growth opportunities demand, so why not this one?"

There's clearly a business case for consistent representation of disabled people in advertising and media. ‘The Purple Pound’—the spending power of disabled people and their households—on a global scale amounts to over US$13 trillion a year. And there's the cultural significance as well. 

"Representation matters because seeing people that look like you, or relating to the characters, and being able to connect to a reality or culture or experience that is not commonly shared by others can be very powerful and healing," says Lee. "If the ads do not shift, our culture does not shift."

There's always hope that events like the Paralympics will continue to push brands toward better representation of the disabled community, but the key will be sustained action.

"It’s encouraging that more brands are beginning to understand the importance of continuous engagement with the disabled community," says Sibley. "Going forward, I hope to see a shift where disabled people are part of the mainstream narrative in advertising—represented not only as consumers but as employees, creators, and decision-makers." 

To accommodate this, there are a number of specialist disability agencies such as Doable, Purple Goat, Disinfluencer and Accessibrand. 

"If incumbent agencies simply don’t have disabled talent and expertise, there are places that brands can come and get it," says Boyle, who urges brands to ensure that disability representation in their work does more than just increase and then decrease with each Paralympic Games.