Unilever commits to hiring disabled talent on its ad production teams

It’s no secret that disability representation in advertising is an issue, with one 2021 Nielsen report finding that only about 1% of primetime ads featured people who are differently abled. More recently, brands like Apple and Skims have made it a point to create campaigns with disabled people in front of the camera.

But the lack of representation also exists behind the camera, which is the driving force behind Unilever’s new “Believe in Talent” initiative. The mandate requires that at least one person with a disability works on the crew for any production exceeding €100k (or about $107k)—estimated to amount to about 70% of the brand’s ads, per The Drum.

Aline Santos, Unilever’s chief brand officer and chief equity, diversity and inclusion officer, told Ad Age that the ad industry “was not really fit [to accommodate] people with disabilities,” so the goal is to show the industry it’s “going to be even more successful” when they’re included. She also confirmed the company has been piloting the initiative for the past 18 months with brands like Hellman’s and Ponds.

In addition to the initiative, Unilever created a toolkit with disability advocacy group Inclusively Made about creating safe production spaces for disabled creatives, which it sent to every ad agency and production company it works with. Some of the tips include:

• How to avoid viewing people with disabilities through pity or inspiration lenses
• How to remove attitudinal and physical barriers from production spaces
• Where to hire new talent in the industry and how to best assign tasks

Ongoing change: These initiatives are part of Unilever’s “Act 2 Unstereotype” initiative, which it began in 2021 as a way to “help influence the next generation of people to be free from prejudice” and “make real, structural changes to the entire marketing process.”