Australian insurers have reaffirmed their commitment to supporting people with disabilities by joining Dylan Alcott’s Shift 20 initiative.
Launched on September 17, the initiative aims to transform disability representation and normalise seeing and hearing people with disability in advertising and media. It is led by the Dylan Alcott Foundation.
nib is among the 10 Australians brands to join Shift 20. It replaced its lead role in its current advertising campaign “nib. As exciting as health insurance gets” with 26-year-old Rae Pastuszak, an actress who lives with Down syndrome.
“You will see Rae in our ad spot named ‘Traffic’ on your TVs this month. We’ll continue to feature Rae within our TV ad as part of our advertising rotation throughout the year, and you’ll also see her in various online marketing for the Shift 20 Initiative,” said nib head of marketing and digital Chris Donald.
Last month, nib reaffirmed its commitment to First Nations peoples by supporting the Yes vote for constitutional change to enable First Nations peoples to make representations to the Parliament on matters related to them.
Suncorp Group’s AAMI has also joined the initiative. It enlisted Lara Nakhle, professional singer and disability advocate, to feature as the “AAMI woman” and re-record the brand’s iconic “Lucky you’re with AAM” jingle. Nakhle’s eye condition, Leber Congenital Amaurosis, has been with her since birth, making her totally blind but with some light perception.
“As Australia’s largest personal insurer, we know how important it is to support diversity and inclusion and represent all Australians in our workforce and through our advertising campaigns,” said Mim Haysom, EGM brand & marketing at Suncorp Group. “We work closely with partners like Vision Australia through our presenting partnership of Carols by Candlelight, What Ability, and Youngcare who all do wonderful work providing support and services to help Australians living with disability to live their best life.”
This week, Dylan Alcott AO announced the launch of the Shift 20 Initiative on Channel Ten’s The Sunday Project.
During the ad break for the segment, Shift 20 partners presented an “Unignorable Ad-Break,” replacing scenes within their current TVCs to include talent with disability to raise awareness of disability representation in advertising and launch an initiative designed to combat it. The altered spots from the partner brands ran for a week and culminated in a complete media roadblock during the prime-time Sunday Project.
Commenting on the initiative, Ryan Fitzgerald, executive creative director at global independent creative group Special Australia, said “When we first started talking to Dylan about the issue, we knew this couldn’t simply be an awareness job. We needed to do something bold that made a statement and, more importantly, created real change with a long-lasting impact.
“Changing out something that has already been and including a person with disability is a simple yet powerful way to highlight that people with disability can easily fill the same roles as anyone else. Whether it’s changing the iconic face of a brand, brand representatives, or simply the characters in the stories we tell, our industry is in a powerful position to send a message to 20% of Australia that, up until now, has gone largely unseen to say, ‘we see you’.”
