Much of this year’s shortlisted and winning work has used practical and innovative solutions to ensure that more people in society are included, have access and are represented. These creative approaches seek to reach those who have not traditionally been catered for by mainstream media and campaigns. The work represents an understanding that diversity and inclusion requires behavioural change, deeper representation and increased accessibility, and uses innovative interventions to achieve this.

By removing stigmas, challenging antiquated beliefs and inspiring people to unlearn biases, Forbidden Number by Brazilian agency Africa for AB InBev sought to create a more inclusive culture. In a soccer-crazed country such as Brazil, methods to combat homophobia ingrained in culture could have a big impact if channeled through the sport. The number 24 has long been superstitiously associated with homosexuality in Brazil, so much so that no first division league club uses the number on jerseys. Forbidden Number sought to combat this by getting more than 20 football clubs to have their players represent the number 24 shirt. This approach broke a long-standing taboo by taking a number associated with prejudice and turning it into a number of respect and inclusivity, willing to alienate prejudiced fans in the process of making football less homophobic and more inclusive.

Showing careful consideration for the nuanced feelings and experiences of different demographics underpins much of this creative work, and the transgender and non-binary experience was addressed in Meet Q, The Genderless Voice by Virtue. This work challenged the binary options usually made available in voice technology by creating Q – the world’s first genderless voice for AI assistants. Using sound design to create a gender neutral voice has helped challenge rather than reinforce stereotypes, a pivotal step of progress towards greater inclusivity and reducing gender bias in the world of voice technology.

Prior to the Project Understood initiative, Google’s voice assistant misunderstood one in every three words said by someone with Down Syndrome. Using AI to collect and analyse the voices of people with Down Syndrome, they were able to enhance Google Assistant’s viability for users with the condition. By working with those affected by this prejudice, who helped to fix the solution by ‘donating their voice’ and teaching Google’s voice recognition, this work has provided access to a service that can lead to life-changing independence for an underserved sector of community.

See Sound by AREA 23, an FCB Health Network Company, for entirely deaf-owned sound recognition company Wavio, responds to customers with impaired abilities. Using a machine learning model, See Sound is the world's first smart home hearing system. This device verifies noises against a data library and translates them into a simple visual readout, meaning that those who are deaf and hard of hearing are able to better identify and differentiate sounds within their home.

As well as creating more widely accessible products, some of this year’s work aims to provide more employment opportunities for those with disabilities. According to a report from the Return On Disability Group, “90% of companies claim to prioritise diversity, only 4% consider disability in those initiatives.” For a business to be truly inclusive and diverse, the make-up of staff must reflect this goal. TBWA\London’s #stealourstaff campaign for BECo, tackles the question of inclusivity for those with disabilities in the workforce. The established British social enterprise soap brand leads by example; 80% of its staff are living with disabilities, and the campaign used product packaging to print BECo employees’ CVs, following up with adverts that directly called upon the likes of Nike and Gillette to “steal our staff”.

Avatar Robot Café by agency ADR Creative One creates greater inclusivity in the workplace for those with disabilities through tech products that enable this. At the Avatar Robot Cafe in Tokyo, people with disabilities were employed to remotely control robot avatars to wait on tables. This helped those who have long felt ostracised from society to participate in ways not previously possible. Avatars, controlled by eye-tracking technology, have been a vital tool in improving inclusivity and accessibility and this approach can extend to other sections of society too. Speaking to D&AD earlier this year Des Tapaki, Digital Experience Director at Honest Digital, said: “The tech itself is mind-blowing. In Covid-19 this could be expanded further, for example, to elderly people who can’t go out.”

Disability access specialists Cheung Access make architectural and building firms more inclusive environments. To signify an objective to create more places and spaces that are accessible for all people, Inclusive Places Brandmark by Enigma Marketing Australia created a new name and logo design for the business. The Inclusive Places design now uses open doors as a shorthand for the welcoming spaces the company helps to create, utilising the negative space between open doors to make a capital ‘I’ for inclusive.

Innovative use of technology can help better represent those usually underserved, such as the homeless community, by providing products and services that cater for them. UK-based challenger bank Monzo and agency FCB Inferno launched Pay It Forward for The Big Issue, a magazine sold by homeless people on streets across the UK to help empower themselves. Through mobile payments, QR codes and a banking initiative that allows homeless people their own bank accounts (an issue without a fixed address), it allowed anyone who passed on the magazine to ‘resell’ it and create revenue for the original vendor. This demonstrates how creative digital commerce can be designed to help underserved communities while promoting business by making products accessible.

Fashion advertising often channels contemporary culture in more abstract and visual ways. An Open Mind is the Best Look by Droga5 for fashion retailer Nordstrom tells nuanced stories that showcase our uniqueness as beings. This work centres on a narrative of inclusivity in the typical cinematic style of acclaimed director Martin de Thurah. It champions a world in which we embrace and celebrate the differences, quirks and nuances that make us who we are as a species, where an open mind will never go out of style.

“It’s not a classic advertising piece,” said Wax Editor Kate Owen-Lloyd in a panel discussion for D&AD. “We thought it was beautiful that it was wrapped around a poem.”

This work demonstrates the innovative and exciting work that can come as a result of taking into account the experiences of marginalised groups. The experiences customers have when they interact with your brand, product or service can look very different depending on their circumstances, and this work seeks to address that, acknowledging these perspectives and catering to them. These democratic approaches navigate blind spots and become more possible when the perspectives of diverse voices are factored into the creative process.

Theme Report by Neighbourhood, commissioned and edited by D&AD for the 2020 D&AD digital Annual.