Ad Campaign Gives Disabilities Workplace Cool-Factor

There’s no sob story in a new national push to promote hiring of people with disabilities.

In fact, the advertising campaign launching this week hardly even mentions the word “disability.” Instead, the focus is on the many quirks found in the workplace — everything from the co-worker who talks too loud to the one who can’t put together a decent outfit. The idea is that disability presents just one more element to workplace diversity and that hiring people with disabilities can be cool.

In one ad, for example, a man who is dubbed “rhythm impaired” is shown clumsily dancing alongside the tag line: “Just because someone moves a little differently doesn’t mean they can’t help move your business forward. The same goes for people with disabilities.”

Unlike most previous national efforts to encourage disability employment which relied on donated ad space, this one is funded by disability employment agencies in 30 states and has a $4 million budget for the first half of 2010 alone. The ads targeted at managers, executives and human resources professionals at companies of all sizes are slated to appear on television stations like CNN, ESPN and NBC, in print publications like Fortune and The Wall Street Journal and online, reports The New York Times. To read more click here.

The campaign dubbed “Think beyond the label,” comes as the unemployment rate among people with disabilities was at 13.8 percent in December compared to 9.5 percent for the rest of the population, not seasonally adjusted.