Access Israel - "People. Not Symbols "

Leo Burnett Israel

Leo Burnett Israel Bnei Brak, Israel

4298

This ad is part of the ACT Responsible Collection

Brand: Access Israel
Country: Israel

Advertiser: Access Israel

Title	People. Not Symbols
Agency	Leo Burnett Israel
Campaign	People. Not Symbols
Advertiser	Access Israel
Brand	Access Israel
Date of First Broadcast/Publication	2017 / 12
Business Sector	Racial/Ethnic/Minority/Disability Awareness
Story	Synopsis People all over the world know the iconic international Symbol of Access used to identify parking spots reserved for the disabled. Yet, in Israel, hundreds of healthy drivers ignore the symbol every day and park in disabled people’s designated spots. So in anticipation of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Access Israel – an NPO for people with disabilities, decided to raise public awareness for the issue by initiating an action that would sensitize the public and echo loud enough that politicians would no longer be able to ignore the issue. Strategy While we aimed primarily to sensitize healthy drivers with a blatant disrespect for disabled parking signs by appealing to their human side, we also aimed to create traction for the campaign by enlisting the moral sense of decency of the general public to apply pressure via social media on lawbreakers. Our bet was that if the chatter and discussion created by the repurposed signs on social media were loud enough, our fight would ultimately be echoed in the press and make it to the corridors of power in parliament where the decisions get made. So while the heart of our action would be about repurposing a previously unused and mostly ignored media (the signposts), the rest of our efforts would be concentrated on building up public chatter, mobilizing the press and funneling the power of social media discussions to move lawmakers and pressure them into taking action. Relevancy For the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we repurposed the iconic international “parking for disabled” signs so often ignored and gave them a human face. Repurposing the signs and using them as a media platform, we replaced the two-dimensional illustrated faceless version of the symbol with the picture of real people. To do that we photographed 50 people with disabilities and staged them to look exactly like the International Symbol of Access. We then printed their pictures to the exact dimensions of the original parking signs and replaced thousands of illustrated disabled parking signs with our human version. Outcome • A discussion surrounding our action scaled on social media • All news outlets covered our campaign. • Coverage was positive and supportive, calling our initiative “original and human” and our fight justified. • After a decade that ‘Access Israel’ had been trying to reach the Israeli parliament, our message finally made it to the public agenda and reached the antechambers of the Israeli parliament. In a special session chaired by Eitan Cabel - Chairman of the Economic Affairs Committee – he stated that “As a direct result of Access Israel's campaign ‘People. Not Symbols’ the entire Israeli Parliament will unite to make the change and it's about time!” • The parliament pledged to modify the law by the end of 2018 by Increasing the fine for parking violators by 100% • 2 of Europe’s largest accessibility organizations have said they will launch their own version of our campaign. Execution Using the signs as a media platform, we replaced the two-dimensional illustrated faceless version of the symbol with the picture of real people. We photographed a total of 50 disabled people, including members of parliament, Paralympic medalists and celebrities. Capturing them on a blue background, dressed in white clothes, we staged them to look exactly like the International Symbol of Access. We then printed their pictures to the exact dimensions of the original parking signs and replaced 4000 of illustrated disabled parking signs in 17 cities all over Israel with our human version. Campaign Description Repurpose the iconic international “parking for disabled” signs so often ignored and use them as a media platform to raise awareness for the issue by replacing the icons with the pictures of real people.
Philosophy	For December 3rd "International Day of Persons with Disabilities", Access Israel – the NPO whose mission it is to promote accessibility for people with disabilities in Israel, is replacing all disabled parking spot signs with the pictures of real people. You've probably seen it happen a zillion times and you've maybe even done it yourself once or twice. By that I mean park in a spot for disabled people. Yeah, we've all seen it happen before: a car blitzing into a parking spot reserved for the disabled only for its driver to step out seconds later on two perfectly functioning legs. Sure, if you ask the driver he'll probably have a whole battery of excuses to go with his blatant misbehavior and disrespect. Anything ranging from: "I'll only be a second", "I'm just picking up my wife" to "What's the rush? You're sitting in a wheelchair anyway!" and our personal favorite: "I DIDN’T SEE THE SIGN". Well, it's got to stop. That's why 'Access Israel' decided for the December 3rd "International Day of Persons with Disabilities", to put a face on people with disabilities. The NPO decided to raise the public's awareness to the issue by replacing the disabled icon on thousands of disabled parking signs throughout the country with the picture of real disabled people. To do that, we photographed a total of 52 people including well-known disabled Knesset Members and Paralympic Medalists and uploaded their stories onto a dedicated website where people could read more about them and how they came to be disabled. The project which was launched via a teaser campaign a few days ago, will go live on December 3rd with 12 agency teams spanning out over the country's cities and replacing signs overnight. In places where we ran our test trials, the very action of replacing the signs with people's faces sparked interest and debate. So this is bound to get interesting and create traction. Ah, and in case you're wondering we placed some hidden cameras to measure the number of infractions per hour – the results will leave you speechless.
Media Type	Outdoor/Out of Home
Length	108 seconds
Chief Executive Officer	Adam Polachek
Chief Creative Officer	Ami Alush
Chief Strategy Officer	Shai Nissenboim
Chief Account Officer	Idit Zukerman
Creative Concept	Mila Dayan
Creative Concept	Chen Federing
Creative Concept	Meital Miller
Account Supervisor	Inna Tubin
Account Executive	Ilana Peisakhin
Producer Manager	Simi Ben-Zikri
Producer Manager	Menny Zarhia
Graphic Team	Viki Bergman
Graphic Team	Shlomi Amir
Graphic Team	Elad Ziv
Strategic Planner	Liz Stull
CEO	Adam Polachek
VP Creative	Ami Alush
VP Account	Idit Zukerman
VP strategy	Shai Nissenboim
Copywriter	Chen Federing
Art Director	Mila Dayan
Art Director	Meital Miler
Account Supervisor	Inna Tubin
Account Manager	Ilana Peisakhin
Producer	Simi Ben-Zikri
Producer	Menny Zarhia
Strategic Planner	Liz Stull
PR Account Supervisor	Maya Karvat
PR Account Manager	Lirit Livni Lahav
Entrant Company	ACCESS ISRAEL
Idea Creation	LEO BURNETT ISRAEL
Production	LEO BURNETT ISRAEL
PR	KARVAT & WEISS
Media Placement	LEO BURNETT ISRAEL