A couple of weeks ago, it was the Super Bowl in the US.
For many years, this has been one of the most watched events in the US sporting and television calendar, and consequently, a time for companies to spend millions of dollars on new adverts to try and capture the attention of the millions of sets of eyeballs tuned in for the game.
This year, PepsiCo released a new ad - Bob’s House.
The advert was created and enacted by deaf members of the PepsiCo workforce, a group called EnAble and is based around a deaf community in-joke.
I first saw it when someone sent me a link to the advert on YouTube, and I thought it was really quite clever and funny. At the same time, I was impressed that Pepsi had put the investment in both to make the ad in the first place, and also buy a slot at the Super Bowl for it.
In the comments accompanying it, some people felt that the ad was offensive. Some disagreed and felt it was positive, and some showed their ignorance of what people with a disability can do. Standard youtube stuff, mostly.
It reminded me of a video that we sometimes use in awareness raising courses - “A world made for disabilities” and it got me thinking - do adverts like this raise awareness, and if so, do they do it in a good or bad way, or is it that there’s no such thing as bad awareness raising?
View the making of Bob’s House on youtube
View A world made for disabilities on youtube
What do you think?
JackP | 23/02/2008 at 8:29 | Permalink
Huh? I don’t understand what’s supposed to be offensive about it. It’s from the deaf people’s point of view, it’s the non-disabled people who suffer and so on. I just thought it was funny…
Although I will admit to playing it twice before I realised there wasn’t supposed to be sound on it and having a “d’oh!” moment.