Beyond Labels: "Think Beyond the Label" Ad Campaign and Website

By Joan Leotta

Perhaps you’ve seen the spot. A HR manager in a wheelchair whirls around a typical office setting, pointing out the various employees who might be labeled as “different”: The Fashion-Deficient woman, the man who is Copy-Incapable, and the star of the ad herself, who is Coffee-Making Impaired. The tagline proclaims, “Labels get in the way. Disabilities rarely do.” [View the spot on YouTube]

The Think Beyond the Label ad campaign and website (www.thinkbeyondthelabel.com) offer a humorous yet powerful public relations tool to dispel negative stereotypes about people with disabilities. Aimed at both senior executives making hiring decisions in large firms and the owners of small to medium-sized companies, the ad makes the point that hiring people with disabilities can benefit any employer’s bottom line.

The factors that set this campaign apart from other public-service announcements are manifold. First, the profile of the spots is high, with prominent paid TV spots, Web promotions on the likes of CNN.com, ESPN.com and WSJ.com, and print ads in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, INC, and HR Magazine. Second, it represents the first time in nearly 50 years that states have pooled resources to deliver such a message nationally. And finally, the promotion, though state-sponsored, is following a private-sector model for public relations by collecting bids, hiring the most talented agencies, and paying for the most desirable time slots in coveted markets.

Powerful Message, Propitious Moment

Barb Otto, the Executive Director of Health & Disability Advocates (HDA), is coordinating the effort. The national Health & Disability Advocates organization, headquartered in Chicago, promotes income security and improves healthcare access and services for children, people with disabilities, and low-income seniors.

Says Otto, “There is a lot of misinformation about what it means for a company to hire a person with a disability, from simple lack of cultural awareness to fear of lawsuit to fears of costs in areas such as workers’ compensation. The campaign was envisioned by states as a potential catalyst for change on a national level.”

Picture of Ambassador for Human Rights Luis Benigno Gallegos

Actress/dancer Alana Hodges-Wallace, is spokesperson for the Think Beyond the Label campaign. And Coffee-Making Impaired.

Photo credit: Natalie Perkins

Key to the message is spokesperson and actress/dancer Alana Hodges-Wallace. Hodges-Wallace says, “I love the fact that this campaign takes a clever and edgy approach to get the message out to employers and others. People with disabilities want to work, and more importantly, have the talent and courage to do so.” On her own role in the spot, she says, “I’m proud to be seen in the commercial as the lead character and the office HR director, not someone in the background licking stamps!”

The humor in the ad disparages neither the employee nor the employer, but rather highlights the point that employees with disabilities are valuable. New York Times critic Stuart Elliott gave the ad a favorable review, saying it’s “not your father’s ‘hire the handicapped’ campaign.” More important to the promotion, however, are the opinions of focus groups. Not only did employers polled like the ads — nine out of ten found them humorous — but eight out of ten said that the ads would spur them to positive action.

The first wave of spots aired in February 2010, and placements were chosen, says Otto, according to “where the message will be most likely to reach the target audience in the business community.” Indications are that the ad has arrived at a propitious moment in the recovering economy. The first-quarter report of the 2010 Manpower Employment Outlook (www.manpower.com/meos), a leading employment-research prospectus, projects a 12% increase in jobs across the United States in the coming months.

From concept to reality

The impetus for the campaign came at a 2006 conference of state Medicaid Infrastructure Grants managers. At that meeting, several state representatives discovered a common interest in developing a campaign. Sara Kendall, Project Manger for the Oregon Competitive Employment Project, says, “While some individual states had initiated their own campaigns in the past, there has not been a coordinated nation-wide campaign for almost fifty years.”

Representatives from Oregon, North Dakota, Maryland, Florida, and Connecticut took the lead, along with Otto and the HDA, to make the campaign a reality. After this core group set parameters, they then sent out a request for proposals so that PR firms could bid for the job. After reviewing proposals, the group selected Wirestone LLC of Chicago as the creative power, along with media management firm Kelly, Scott, and Madison to purchase broadcasting slots and Rabin Research to provide necessary background information.

Oversight by the core group continued as Wirestone and Rabin developed the concept. In addition, people with disabilities and advisors within the disability community were brought in for the research phase.

In addition to this core group, the 43 US states that receive Medicaid Infrastructure Grants are participating in the campaign. According to Otto, about five million dollars has been spent so , and at the time of this writing (April 2010) the lead team is had already secured another four million for the second round of ads, scheduled for August through October.

Five “myths” about disabled employees became the focus of the campaign. These include the belief that people with disabilities have a higher absentee rate (when in fact, the rates are documented as lower) and the misconception that hiring an employee with a disability will cause workers’ compensation rates to rise (when in reality, workers’ compensation is tied to injury rates at a worksite, not an employee’s physical status when hired).

The Think Beyond the Label companion website to the ad promotion also provides employers information about the process of hiring people with disabilities and the advantages that can be gained in so doing. For example, one statistic quoted shows that 92% of Americans view enterprises that hire people with disabilities more favorably than their competitors.

Success

Oregon’s Sara Kendall says that although the campaign is young, “we think it is doing exactly what we wanted it to do: change the way people think.” State disability offices in Oregon and other states have received a good deal of positive feedback from businesses regarding the ad. Kendall notes, “Some businesses have told us that [the promotion] made them stop and really think about what it would mean to hire someone with a disability and, more important, that is has made them wonder why they never before considered tapping into this particular labor pool.”

What other the measures of success have there been so far? Otto notes that “for now, the anecdotal evidence is good that the campaign is helping employers to focus on what each potential worker can contribute to a workplace.” She hopes to have hard numbers in the future to prove that notion.

Jade Gingerich, Director of Employment Policy for Maryland’s Department of Disabilities, notes: “While it is too early to measure any change, it is clear from the comments and feedback I am getting that employers are beginning to view individuals more on their abilities than their disabilities, and that is an exciting shift.”

Future

Otto maintains that the promotion is groundbreaking in a number of ways. “Certainly the message is unlike any that businesses have heard before,” she asserts. In addition, the level of teamwork across state lines has been remarkable. “The fact that 30 states collaborated on this first go-round, were able to agree and work together for the common good was,” she states, “extraordinary. It really showed all of us how unified we are, and what amazing results can happen for the folks we serve when we work together.”

The hope is that results will continue to make employers aware of and act on what Hodges-Wallace has long known: “People with disabilities are jewels” and, in the realm of employment, “an untapped gold mine.”

Edited by Mary-Louise Piner.