Channel 4 is challenging brands to focus on accessibility for its annual £1m Diversity in Advertising award.

Now in its ninth year, the award’s theme for 2024 is ‘Inclusive by Design’. The broadcaster is challenging brands and agencies to remove the barriers many people face when engaging with TV advertising, with the winner receiving more than £1m of advertising space across the Channel 4 portfolio.

The broadcaster is encouraging advertisers to embed inclusive practices into their creative to ensure all consumers can fully experience brands, receive and understand communication, and engage with products. Foregrounding inclusivity and accessibility into the production and cast of these ads increases and broadens their impact with audiences, Channel 4 adds.

Research from the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) finds 18 million people in the UK have different, diverse experiences of hearing loss and deafness. Likewise, research from the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) reveals around 340,000 people are registered blind or partially sighted.

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Channel 4 Sales’ own research identified that if more ads use inclusive techniques, they can reach an additional 14 million people across the UK.

“The Diversity in Advertising Awards has challenged the industry to up its game every year and played a huge role in in encouraging it to be more representative of the UK,” says Channel 4 chief revenue officer Veriça Djurdjevic.

“This year’s brief is a call to arms: let’s make ads inclusive by design. Already this year, Channel 4 has begun to challenge the industry on equality and inclusion by committing that all ads during our coverage of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games will carry subtitles. We now plan to go further.”

The awards scheme aligns with Channel 4’s commitment to create change and challenge the advertising industry. Inclusive Design is one of the six key principles that make up the broadcaster’s new equity and inclusion strategy, Equity By Design. The initiative follows Channel 4’s announcement that all advertising around its coverage at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games will carry subtitles.

E45 launches award winning campaign highlighting skin changes for trans people

Previous winners of the annual Diversity in Advertising Award have included FIFA, the RAF, Maltesers and skincare brand E45, which have created campaigns representing the  LGBTQIA+ community, women, those with visible and non-visible disabilities, and those from diverse ethnic backgrounds.

Last year’s winner E45, went live with a campaign in May designed to alleviate some of the hostility faced by the trans community. The campaign ‘This Is Me. This Is My Space’, conceived by The&Partnership, shines a light on the skin experiences of a community who feature in less than 1% of ads.

The deadline for entries is 4pm on 20 September. A judging panel, made up of advertising experts from across the industry, will determine the winner and runners-up. The winner will be announced in November, with the campaign airing on Channel 4 in 2025.