Access Israel: Access Israel

Credits & Description:

Brand: Access Israel
ACCESS ISRAEL Kfar Saba, Israel Entrant Company
LEO BURNETT ISRAEL Bnei-Brak, Israel Idea Creation
LEO BURNETT ISRAEL Bnei-Brak, Israel Production
KARVAT & WEISS Tel-Aviv, Israel PR
LEO BURNETT ISRAEL Bnei-Brak, Israel Media Placement
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
Account Supervisor: Inna Tubin
Account Executive: Ilana Peisakhin
Producer Manager: Simi Ben Zikri, Menny Zarhia
Graphic Team: Viki Bergman, Shlomi Amir, Elad Ziv
Strategic Planner: Liz Stull
Marcom: Eva Hasson
Maya Karvat KARVAT & WEISS PR Account Supervisor
Lirit Livni Lahav KARVAT & WEISS PR Account Manager
Published: April 2018
Synopsis:
You've probably seen it happen a zillion times and you've maybe even done it yourself once or twice. By that I mean park in a spot for disabled people.
Yeah, we've all seen it happen before: a car blitzing into a parking spot reserved for the disabled only for its driver to step out seconds later on two perfectly functioning legs. Sure, if you ask the driver he'll probably have a whole battery of excuses to go with his blatant misbehavior and disrespect. Anything ranging from: "I'll only be a second", "I'm just picking up my wife" to "What's the rush? You're sitting in a wheelchair anyway!" and our personal favorite: "I DIDN’T SEE THE SIGN".
Desperate for stricter enforcement of their rights, “Access Israel” decided to raise public awareness for the issue and to put a face on people with disabilities.
To do that we photographed disabled people including members of parliament, Paralympic medalists and celebrities and staged them to look exactly like the international symbol on disabled parking signs. The plan was to create a loud enough message politicians would no longer be able to ignore. And so, over the space of 1 night, we replaced thousands of disabled parking signs in over 17 Israeli cities with a real person's picture.
The outcome? Our message reached the antechambers of the Israeli parliament where the issue finally made it to the public agenda with the parliament pledging to modify the law by the end of 2018 by increasing the fine for parking violators by 100%.
In addition, 2 of Europe’s largest accessibility organizations are about to launch their own version of our campaign.
Entry Summary
• In Israel there over 180,000 disabled people (2.25% of the population) – many of them injured during their military service and as a result of terror attacks.

• According to Israeli Police figures, more than 20,000 fines are handed out every year. Each year those numbers have increased, proof that disabled parking infractions are not only common but growing.

• At the same time, requests for special disabled parking permits have grown at a year-on-year rate of 16% while city parking allocations have grown at a much lesser rate – a clear indication that respecting these specially allocated parking spots is an imperative as it impacts disabled people's quality of life and mobility.

Brief Explanation
For the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we repurposed the iconic international “parking for disabled” signs so often ignored and gave them a human face. Repurposing the signs and using them as a media platform, we replaced the two-dimensional illustrated faceless version of the symbol with the picture of real people. To do that we photographed dozens of people with disabilities, including members of parliament, Paralympic medalists and celebrities. Capturing them on a blue background, dressed in white clothes, we staged them to look exactly like the International Symbol of Access. We then printed their pictures to the exact dimensions of the original parking signs and replaced thousands of illustrated disabled parking signs in cities all over Israel with our human version.