From the New York Times:

Advertisers are increasingly making an effort to reach out to people with disabilities, even as the economic downturn is cutting into revenues. The idea: To connect with customers in a way that is seen as more altruistic and less mercenary.

Among recently announced charitable partnerships:

• Advertising agency BBDO Worldwide is working to support a Special Olympics campaign to end the derogatory use of forms of the word “retard.” The campaign, called “Spread the Word to End the Word,” kicks off today. Posters for the campaign link the word to familiar slurs about race, sexual orientation, and to offensive phrases about blacks, Jews, gays and women.
• Toys ‘R’ Us and Babies ‘R’ Us are helping raise money for Autism Speaks.
• American Airlines and the American Association of People With Disabilities have announced plans to honor television commercials that feature positive portrayals of people with disabilities.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 9:14 am and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, advertising, autism, business, intellectual/developmental disabilities, public attitudes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.