Learning articles

• Building on the Diversity in Advertising Awards’ ten-year legacy, the 2025/26 edition seeks ‘Inclusive by Design’ briefs
• Channel 4 Sales today confirms that from spring 2026 it will be mandatory for all ads to be supplied with closed captions
• In addition, it announces commitments, including for all sponsorship idents to be inclusive by design, and make subtitles standard for all creative partnerships

Channel 4 Sales today launches the tenth edition of its annual Diversity in Advertising Awards, which has gifted £10 million in advertising space to campaigns promoting diversity and inclusion since 2015.

For 2025, the brief remains 'Inclusive by Design,' urging the industry to embed inclusive practices into creative development and remove barriers to engagement with TV advertising.

The announcement was made at the 2025 ISBA President’s Lunch which this year also celebrates ISBA’s 125 year anniversary. 

​ISBA president Pete Markey has unveiled the eight winners of the 2025 President’s Awards. The announcement was made at the 2025 ISBA President’s Lunch which this year also celebrates ISBA’s 125 year anniversary.

Each winner was selected due to their support for ISBA and their significant contribution to its key priorities.

One winner was a committed member of the Ad Accessibility Network. Congratulations Amy!

Amy Nicklin, Senior Brand Manager, P&G

Amy is a passionate and vocal advocate for accessible advertising within P&G and the wider industry. Amy has been a committed member of the Ad Accessibility Network and has been a catalyst for real change.

The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is an EU Directive aiming to improve the accessibility of key products and services for people with disabilities across the EU. It applies to a range of physical and digital products and services, including computers and operating systems, smartphones, TV equipment related to digital television services, access to audio-visual media services such as television broadcast and related consumer equipment, banking services, e-books, and e-commerce, among others. As of 28 June 2025, all products and services offered in the EU will be required to meet accessibility standards. Products and services already on the market before June 2025 must comply by 30 June 2030.

This 2-page guide outlines the requirements, how it applies to marketing, implementation, links to key resources and an annex detailing differences by member state.

When Channel 4 challenged brands to make TV ads “inclusive by design” for its 2024 Diversity in Advertising Award, Currys and AMV BBDO answered with ‘Sigh of Relief’ – a single, laugh-out-loud film that puts accessibility front and centre.

Rather than bolt sign-language on afterwards, the team built British Sign Language into the story from day one, working hand-in-hand with Open Inclusion, RNID, RNIB and Deaf co-creators. Through three rounds of focus groups, alongside on-set BSL consultants and audio describers, the team tuned every sigh, sign and sight-loss insight into one seamless 60-second spot that reframes accessibility as a creative superpower – and sets a new bar for every brand’s pre-production playbook.

LBB’s Olivia Atkins spoke to specialists from across the AMV BBDO team to find out what was key to it all coming together.

I have long lamented that radio cannot do subtitles. Still fresh in my memory was the time, many years ago, when I was managing editor of BBC Radio 3 and we tried to make Wagner’s operas more accessible. Using DAB text, we synchronized real-time English translations of Wagner’s never-ending masterpiece, the four-opera cycle, “The Ring of the Nibelung.” What a nightmare. It was such a lot of work!

However, I continue to lament the lack of subtitles for radio, especially since I have witnessed television using them constructively.

For instance, BBC Alba, broadcasting in the Scottish Gaelic language, produces television with English subtitles, meaning that non-Gaelic speakers can enjoy the programming and learn something about life on the Scottish islands without speaking this indigenous language. As a radio guy, I’ve been rather jealous.

This has now potentially changed. Around New Year, I came across radio with “subtitles” and translations, something I believe to be a real game-changer, not in a highly theoretical way, but with real and immediate benefits. Technology is now advanced to the point that this can happen accurately and in real time by building a slight delay into the audio stream.