Ever find yourself fancying a Baileys when it is not Christmas? Well, this one could just be for you with a new campaign for the self-proclaimed “sweetest meeting of fine Irish whiskey and spirits, Irish dairy cream, and rich chocolate and vanilla flavours”.
Launched to coincide with this week’s Global Accessibility Awareness Day, “Delicious Descriptions” is a social media campaign which has been devised by VMLY&R London and created in consultation with the Royal National Institute of Blind People and Meta.
Designed to make social media content more accessible to wider audiences, the activity is primarily targeted at blind and partially sighted consumers and uses enhanced image descriptions and screen reader content to promote the indulgent joy the brand claims it can provide.
Sitting underneath the image content on Meta channels, the enhanced image descriptors are included in closed brackets and connect with existing screen reader technology with the aim of elevating the user experience.
Every day, over 95 million photos and videos are posted on Instagram, many of which contain indulgent treats with over 145 million posts with #delicious. According to latest reports, there are more than two million people living with sight loss in the UK and more than 2.2 billion people with sight loss worldwide.
Content experiences were previously based around general transcriptions of what was being shown in visual without any elevated narration that brought the content to life. Where once the description would have been “the chocolate cake is topped with Baileys”, the new version is layered with the deeper description of “the warm chocolate cake is drizzled with Baileys creating an explosive fondant of hot and cold”.
And Baileys has also created the Delicious Descriptions Guide, a simple step-by-step roadmap to help other brands make their social media content more accessible to wider audiences.
Baileys global marketing director Paul Carton said: “Baileys believes every adult has a seat at the treat table, no matter your age, sexuality, ethnicity, ability or gender and through Delicious Descriptions, we will deliver image descriptions that are as delicious as the image themselves.
“Working collaboratively with RNIB and Meta, we are delighted to make our content that bit more accessible and engaging. We are also encouraging other organisations to make their social content more accessible to wider audiences with our guide. Together we can make Delicious Descriptions that can be enjoyed by everyone.”
VMLY&R London head of social Christina Miller added: “While social platforms have made huge leaps in recent years to make experiences more accessible, we are still not reaching everyone.
“Instagram, in particular, is a highly visual platform by nature, making it hard to deliver a full experience to the visually impaired. We are incredibly proud to support Baileys to not only reach an under-represented community for the platform, but kickstart the wider change we want to see in inclusive content.”
So, what is the consensus around the Decision Marketing office?
Well, let’s face it, anyone who has good vision simply takes every day life and consuming media – traditional and digital – for granted so anything that can improve the experience of blind and partially sighted consumers has got to be welcomed with open arms.
The only thing is, wouldn’t it have been nicer to hear a professional actor voice the descriptions rather than what appears to be the same Speak robot that Microsoft Office users can get to dictate their documents? Just saying.
Decision Marketing Adometer: A ‘sound and vision’ 8 out of 10
