RNIB & The &Partnership Ask Us to See the Person, Not the Sight Loss

In its first major project for the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), The&Partnership London has developed a new brand positioning for the 150-year-old charity. 

The agency partnered with RNIB’s community of partially sighted and blind people to conduct extensive research, which ensured the charity’s new visual identity is the most accessible yet; the spacing, shape, and colour contrast of the letters in RNIB’s new logo have been carefully crafted so that they are easier to distinguish for those who are partially sighted, and the new visual identity covers everything from a new logo, to marketing assets, to signage in their building.

Above: The&Partnership's ECD, Yan Elliot

The optimistic, humorous ad campaign See the Person, Not the Sight Loss was developed to shine a light onto the normal, everyday lives of people living with sight loss; from running into ex-girlfriends, to a love of reality television. It aims to tackle the misconceptions held by much of the public about the lives of partially sighted and blind people. 

The ad campaign will run across print, social, video on demand and OOH, and below The&Partnership's ECD, Yan Elliot, talks to us about the creative thinking behind the campaign and the challenges of pulling it all together. 

"Before we won the pitch for RNIB most of the work it had previously done wasn’t exactly optimistic. The messaging tended to focus on problems, not solutions. We wanted to change this."

Tell us a bit about the brief from the client and the insight about seeing the person rather than the disability... 

We were tasked with changing people’s perception of RNIB. Many people think RNIB just supports people who are totally blind but in reality they are there to help anyone who develops a sight loss condition. No matter how small. The second task was to show that having a sight loss condition is a lot more commonplace than you would think and doesn’t mean leading a restricted life.  The scenarios in the scripts were deliberately chosen as they could happen to anyone, enforcing our message to 'see the person not the sight loss'.

Above: Escalator, one the three TV spots in the campaign

How important was it to cast visually impaired people in the adverts and how did you go about finding them? 

For all of us it was very important to cast people with a genuine sight loss condition. There are many visually impaired people who want to act so it was a perfect opportunity. It also meant that all their actions, like how they would walk or whether they would have their hands out, were totally authentic. It was a team effort finding our cast, RNIB was very helpful in reaching out to their community, whilst Biscuit (the production company) explored wider options.

To see all three of the TV spots from this campaign, please click here. 

Did the agency creative team include any partially or fully blind people working on the brief? 

Yes, one of our creatives, Jane Reader, has Coats' disease which means she is totally blind in her right eye. It hasn’t affected her life, which helped inspire the scripts, co-written by Angus Vine, Artem Bjork, Helen Rogerson and Jo Griffin.

Above: One of the print executions for the campaign.

And why did you feel humour/gentle comedy worked best to get the message across? 

Before we won the pitch for RNIB most of the work it had previously done wasn’t exactly optimistic. The messaging tended to focus on problems, not solutions. We wanted to change this whilst talking to a wider audience. If sight loss could happen to anyone of us, then it’s important to talk to all of us. We wanted to show that a life with sight loss can be happy and surprisingly normal, and humour is a great way to do just that.

What were the most challenging aspects of putting the campaign together? 

Working on the visual identity was a mammoth task. It looks so simple but it has taken our head of design, Marc Donaldson, months of hard graft. It had to be clearly readable for anyone with any sight loss conditions, recognisable as well as refreshing.

Above: One of the OOH executions for the new campaign.

And what made Big Red Button the right directors for the job? 

We were looking for a director who could recognise the understated comedic tone we were after. Johnny and Pier, of Big Red Button, understood that from the off. There wasn’t much money on the job to pull it off either but the guys didn’t care. They were committed from the beginning to the end.

Any funny anecdotes to share from filming? 

The woman cast for the Carrot script is allergic to carrots. And the couple in the Rendezvous spot swapped numbers at the end of the shoot. Love that.

Above: Information booklets which showcase the RNIB's new visual identity. 

What sort of feedback have you had from the blind/visually impaired community on the campaign? 

It’s early days so far as it is just launching, but bear in mind that such a campaign has to have buy-in from the board at RNIB, many of whom have varying degrees of sight loss conditions, and their response has been overwhelmingly positive. I think it might be the first time that the general public notice its new look, too.