Leo Burnett Israel: The disabled parking signs that actually are hard to ignore

Ever seen someone parked in a disabled spot? Of course you have. You might even have done it yourself.

And there are so many reasons. You were only going to stop for a minute or two. You had an extra-large parcel to pick up. You were in a hurry and disabled spots are always so close to everything. You didn’t see the sign (?)

Disabled people get those spots for a much more viable reason. They need them.

So for International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Leo Burnett Israel and Access Israel, a non-profit dedicted to promoting accessibility and inclusion for people with disabilities and the elderly, decided to raise public awareness for the issue.

By putting faces to those disabled signs.

Leo Burnett photographed disabled people, including members of parliament, Paralympic medallists and celebrities and staged them to look exactly like the international symbol on disabled parking signs. The plan was to create a message that politicians would no longer be able to ignore.

Over the space of one night, the agency replaced thousands of disabled parking signs in more than seventeen Israeli cities with a real person’s picture.

BBR’s message reached the antechambers of the Israeli parliament, where the issue finally made it to the public agenda. The parliament pledged to modify the law by the end of 2018, increasing the fine for parking violators by 100%.

In addition, two of Europe’s largest accessibility organisations are about to launch their own version of the campaign.

Credits:

Agency: Leo Burnett Israel

Chief Executive Officer: Adam Polachek

Chief Creative Officer: Ami Alush

Chief Strategy Officer: Shai Nissenboim

Chief Account Officer: Idit Zukerman

Creative Concept: Mila Dayan, Chen Federing & Meital Miller