Coles and Hungry Jack’s are the first brands to commit to caption their adverts after being asked why they did not by B&T.
Yesterday, B&T revealed how major names including Woolworths, American Express, Ford and Westfield are among many who do not spend the few hundred dollars to get their messages across to people with hearing impairments.
Around 20% of Australians have a hearing impairment, with many relying on captions to watch TV.
Michael Gold, business development manager for Red Bee Media, one of the largest captioning houses, said shops like Coles can get away without captions in some instances where products and price points are featured in the imagery.
But, he pointed to the recent flybuys campaign blitz, featuring comedienne Dawn French, as an example where captions could have been used effectively.
Goran Majstorovic, Coles advertising manager, said: “The decision to use closed captions in our advertising has been recently addressed, as up until now the function has been considered on a case-by-case basis.
“We consider it an important visual aid and closed captioning will always be enabled on all our new TVC campaigns from here on in.”
Hungry Jack’s, a major player in the ad market in recent months, also confirmed to B&T it will use captions in the future.
Rivals McDonald’s are known as a big supporter of captioning, whilst KFC also employs them, however Subway does not.
Commonwealth Bank admitted it missed out the captions from the launch ad of its landmark Can campaign, which featured actress Toni Collette reading a poem.
The ad was so well received B&T was flooded with requests from the public to publish a copy of the poem, written by M&C Saatchi’s creative director Andy Flemming.
A spokeswoman for the bank said: “We didn’t have it on the first version of Toni Colette – but updated it once we realised and issued new material.”
Michael Gold, business development manager for one of Australia’s largest captioning houses, Red Bee Media, said businesses and agencies cannot hide behind the excuse of ignorance.
He told B&T: “There is no excuse from these people, from a cultural point of view they have been approached.
“I’d hate to think between ourselves and the other captioning agencies we haven’t done a good enough job over the last ten years people still don’t know what captioning is.
“I think it’s just laziness with some TV producers not pushing the issue with their clients, not explaining what it is if the clients ask them. I feel that’s the role of agencies to provide that.”
He said some brands, including large car makers, had captioned in the past but stopped doing so, but pointed to Bunnings, who have used captions for more than a decade.
The global financial crisis also impacted on the amount of advertisers willing to caption, but added the charges are still small.
He added: “My experience is if an agency is a strong advocate of captioning we find that reflects in their clients doing it.
“Where it may become more of a financial issue is where you have companies who do versions for different regions. We charge a premium for the master then smaller amounts for each of the others.”
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