At around 9.15 pm on Monday, September 18, Channel 4 ran five blurry ads during a break in the popular show, The Undateables. It wasn’t a tech glitch or broadcasting error. It was a campaign.

A campaign for the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and Eye Health UK for National Eye Health week.

Channel 4 found five advertisers willing to have their ads messed with. The broadcaster altered the copy and applied filters to existing ads for Amazon Echo, Freeview, O2, Paco Rabanne and Specsavers so that they demonstrated the symptoms of diabetes-related sight loss, hemianopia, macular degeneration, cataracts and glaucoma (respectively).

The ads were replayed at 9.30 with audio description for visually impaired people.

Each brand donated 10% of its production fee to the RNIB in support of National Eye Health Week.

The campaign follows a similarly innovative idea by Channel 4, the most accessible ad break ever, which ran during the during the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games, with deaf artist and actor, David Ellington, providing full sign-language support for spots from seven different sponsors, during an episode of The Last Leg live from Rio.

Credits

Channel 4:
Digital & Creative Leader: David Amodio
Creative Strategist: Charlotte Rowland
Group Special Projects Manager: Michelle Pierre

Agency Partners:
Havas Group (O2, Paco Rabanne)
Initiative (Amazon Echo)
MEC (Freeview)
Manning Gottlieb OMD (Specsavers)