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‘Our plan is to have disability representation become the norm’: Marketing bosses reflect on one year of Shift 20
A year on from the launch of the Shift 20 Initiative, marketing bosses from Tourism Australia, McDonald's, nib, and Anytime Fitness, and social media partner TikTok, reflect on the past 12 months with Mumbrella's Lauren McNamara, and speak about what's next.
Last September, some of Australia’s biggest brands re-shot their TV commercials to include a person with disability, as part of the Shift 20 Initiative with the Dylan Alcott Foundation.
Led by independent agency Special Australia, the initiative focuses on increasing disability representation, inclusion, and accessibility in Australia’s advertising and media landscape.
With nearly one in five Australians having disability, yet only being represented in less than 1% of advertising, the Dylan Alcott Foundation is working hard to change the status quo and give people with disability equal opportunities.
And last month, it launched the Shift 20 Casting Call, a TikTok channel dedicated to helping talent with disability secure work in front of the camera.
While we have heard from the likes of Alcott, the stars of the commercials, and Special on what the initiative means to them, we now get to hear from brand partners.
The past year has been filled with pride for a number of brand partners, and Tourism Australia’s CMO, Susan Coghill, tells Mumbrella that working with Shift 20 has inspired the tourism body to give inclusion and accessibility greater focus across the business.
“While we have plenty of work ahead of us, we have been making steady progress since joining Shift 20 as a founding partner – internally as an organisation and externally with our tourism industry and in our marketing to consumers,” she explains.
“Tourism Australia is currently working with Get Skilled Access (GSA) to develop a medium to long-term accessible and inclusive strategy and Disability Inclusion Action Plan (DIAP) to further cement our leadership role across our staff, industry, and international travellers.”
Nib’s head of marketing and digital, Chris Donald, seconded Coghill’s sentiment, saying that being a foundational member of Shift 20 has been a great passion project for the last 12 months.
“Having partnered with Dylan Alcott as our ‘chief motivation officer’, along with launching our NDIS plan management business – nibThrive – we were both passionate and proud to become a foundation member of the Shift 20 initiative,” he says.
“The deliberate focus on people with a disability in our advertising has led to an increased awareness for us, at nib, that there’s a need to represent all people across our marketing and communication more broadly.
“Beyond the brand campaign, we’ve updated our existing member collateral and website content to improve both representation as well as accessibility for a range of disabilities including vision impairment.”
He says the initiative aligns greatly with the overall commitment of the business, and feedback from across the board has been overwhelmingly positive.
“[Our] employees are proud to work for a company that focuses on giving everyone the same access to health and wellbeing services.”
For Anytime Fitness’ CMO, Caitlin Bancroft, the opportunity to join the initiative was a no-brainer.
With Anytime Fitness’ ambition to become Australia’s most welcoming and inclusive gym network, shown through its brand platform ‘Any Body, Any Time’, there were no hesitations.
“We want to move beyond being ‘just a gym’ to activating change and making a real impact on the health and wellness culture of Australia,” she tells Mumbrella.
“We are seeking to make a positive change within the Australian fitness industry by leading from the front. We want to make sure the experience with Anytime Fitness is positive and motivating no matter who you are and what your fitness goals are – hence we jumped at the chance to partner with the Shift 20 Initiative and demonstrate that in everything we do.”
Bancroft says the next step is looking at representation beyond the TVC with the development of its next big brand campaign.
“A key part of the brief is to include disability representation in our advertising across paid social, digital, online video, OOH and more,” she explains.
“Ultimately, our plan is to have disability representation become the norm for all our advertising, and to help train and support our franchisee network to do the same.”
While for McDonald’s, which describes itself as a long-standing supporter of creating opportunities for people with disability, Shift 20 has been yet another chance for the brand to show up and shift the needle.
Over the past 12 months, the fast food restaurant has worked closely with its creative partner DDB to identify these opportunities across its brand platforms, according to Chris Brown, marketing boss at Macca’s.
“We’re proud to share that we have cast people with a disability in eight of our key brand campaigns, ensuring we are continuing to represent the incredible diversity of our employees and the communities we serve,” he says.
“An important part of living our McDonald’s values is prioritising diversity, equity, and inclusion across our business, while recognising that there is always more to do. Our strategy for the future is built on a simple idea: when we live our values, we succeed. We’re committed to continuing this journey, and look forward to doing so with incredible partners like the Dylan Alcott Foundation.”
As for Brett Armstrong, GM of TikTok Australia and New Zealand, getting involved has been an absolute highlight.
“This project has highlighted a real oversight in the industry, so there was no hesitation from us at all in joining. Dylan is an incredible human who is doing something with the Shift 20 initiative that is going to change the world. And beyond that, committing to support accurate representation in our industry is just the right thing to do,” he tells Mumbrella.
“TikTok is fortunate to play a meaningful role in the daily lives of our users. With ‘Casting Call’ we have a great responsibility and opportunity to amplify the Shift 20 initiative beyond a single campaign, creating opportunities for future actors with a disability to get into the industry, be inspired and see great success.”
Reflecting on the Casting Call launch, he tells Mumbrella that within the first 24 hours, a brand connected and booked a campaign.
“It doesn’t get more exciting than that, and this is only the beginning,” Armstrong continues.
“Now it’s up to even more brands to bring these amazing talents into their marketing, and for aspiring actors with a disability to get involved – making advertising more accessible and inclusive, and ads more reflective of our diverse society. A more inclusive and representative advertising industry is better for everyone.”
As aforementioned, it doesn’t stop there.
What the Shift 20 Initiative has also provided, is an opportunity for brands to focus on advocacy, education, and disability representation across the board, not just in their advertising.
Tourism Australia has made a number of strides in the space, according to Coghill.
“Through our Friends of Australia program, we have built relationships with strong advocates including Dylan Alcott AO and Sam Bloom and are continuing to grow this network, working with Jaimen Hudson, Christine Balaguer, James Parr and Moana Hope to help us capture authentic consumer content to inspire and show first-hand what experiences are possible in Australia,” she explains.
The tourism body’s social media channels have also been revamped, as all posts now include image descriptions and more regularly feature accessible and inclusive tourism products across the country. Its consumer website also has a greater focus on inclusion and accessible content, with changes made to the design, content structure, and technical requirements of the user journey.
It has also spread the love, with the Tourism Australia Asset Hub.
“[It’s] a resource available for tourism businesses to gain access to thousands of images and videos for use in their own marketing channels,” Coghill says. “We are building this gallery to have a stronger representation for people with a range of accessible and inclusive tourism needs in addition to featuring accessible tourism product.
“We have since released a free communications guide for our tourism industry, providing insights and practical tips on how to make their communications and content online more accessible.”
While McDonald’s has worked with disability service providers including JobSupport for more than 30 years, Brown says being a part of Shift 20 has inspired the fast food restaurant to supercharge its role in finding meaningful, fulfilling, and customised roles for individuals.
“As we continue to bring our values and commitments to life, McDonald’s recently joined as a proud partner of the Australian Disability Network Employing 100 program,” he says.
Bancroft says she hopes to see more brands get involved, especially in the health and wellness category.
With ‘gymtimidation’ (gym intimidation) being a very real thing, she says its up to the businesses to break down those barriers and welcome everyone – and that starts with the marketing efforts.
“Health & fitness is not only critical to physical wellbeing, but there are such strong communities that build up around gyms and other fitness clubs. It provides anybody with a sense of connection and belonging, and has a significant impact on mental, social, and physical health,” she tells Mumbrella. “But a key challenge we face is the pervasive stereotypical imagery in gym and fitness advertising which fails to reflect the people who actually work out in our clubs.
“We know that ‘gymtimidation’ through the proliferation of advertising showcasing a bevy of toned, tanned terrific Instagram ready bodies is a massive obstacle for people joining a gym. They don’t feel represented in the advertising they are exposed to.
“As the market leader it is incumbent on us to lead from the front and disrupt the category norm we’ve all been conditioned to and which a huge amount of advertising dollars has been invested into permeating,” Bancroft says.
Armstrong agrees: “Joining Shift 20 is an important step that we can all make towards a more inclusive industry. Dylan is one person and has done something that can change the world in a big way here. We need to get behind Shift 20 and drive the change.
“The best thing CMOs and brands can do is lean in and start taking advantage of this opportunity now.”
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the creative and PR beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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