I often wish I could get groups of marketing professionals together, sit them all down on a rather cosy sofa, pass around a family box of biscuits and give them some simple yet potentially transformational advice.
Watch your adverts blindfolded.
Stay with me…
As somebody who grew up severely sight impaired and only started dipping her toe into the cool, fresh waters of audio description streaming from her television screen in her twenties, I had some catching up to do.
It has been illuminating, to say the least. This friendly voice who politely pops up every now and then fills me in on the juicy visual details I would otherwise have missed. It turns a confusing swirl of sound into a proper story.
Definitely among the most crucial of these instances are the cliff-hanger style moments of a soap, which taunt and tantalise us, demanding our attention to stay transfixed until after the break.
And then, the adverts start.
There’s music. There’s shouting. There’s a small child riding a dog through a field of butter. The describer, bless them, does their best, scrabbling for a second to interject: “A woman laughs. A kettle boils. A man dances with a tractor.”
And I’m sitting there thinking ‘what on earth are you selling me? Is this an ad for insurance, yoghurt or emotional whiplash?!’
Here’s the thing, when you can’t see what’s on the screen, you realise how many adverts rely entirely on the visuals to do the heavy lifting. Which is fine – if you’re assuming everyone’s eyes are glued to the screen.
However, there will be a hefty chunk of your audience who either can’t see the screen or are choosing to look elsewhere (namely at their phones).
So, if you want me to buy your product, don’t just show me happy people, tell me why they are happy.
Don’t rely on special effects or pretentious images, speak to me about what makes your product the one I can’t live without.
Think of your advert like a story you’re telling down the pub.
Who’s it for? Why does it matter? How does it make life better (or at least more entertaining)?
If the answer is ‘because it smells nice and comes in three colours’, great – but let me hear that. Let the voiceover or audio describer say it clearly, with the same pizzazz and flair you have put into the visuals.
The savvy brands are the ones who make themselves heard – everything from their messages to their logo. When you make yourself instantly recognisable, even from the next room, you are inviting more customers in all the time.
The very best adverts for me personally are the creative ones, where the description fits the witty style and makes it sound like the writer had a bit of fun. Something like: ‘A man in a dressing gown proudly holds a perfectly toasted crumpet aloft, as though it’s a major life achievement.’
That’s memorable. That’s human. That makes me REALLY want the crumpet!
Ultimately, accessibility isn’t just about compliance. It’s about connection. If your story still makes sense (and still feels good) when it’s described out loud, you know you’ve made something truly inclusive.
This doesn’t just mean that I can understand it. It means you are not making the mistake of leaving millions of pounds on the table.
When you pour your time, energy, effort and love into these advertising masterpieces, what a shame it would be not to ensure the maximum amount of people can enjoy and be tempted by them!
In my experience, nothing produces better cinematic fantasies of what your product might be and the social clout it could afford us as a consumer than the pictures we conjure in our own imaginations. Not forgetting the dollop of dopamine that a good description can release into our minds.
And then maybe, just maybe, we’ll end up buying your yoghurt after all. Well, as long as it’s not the one with the dancing tractor, of course – because goodness only knows what that was all about!
– Hey, I’m Fern, and I’m a blind broadcaster, audio describer and guest blogger for VoiceBox. I love to share my experiences of media accessibility, audio description, events, festivals and more here. Oh, and you may see me refer to ‘Nancy’, my partner in crime and guide dog – adding her to my life was the best thing I ever did.