The One Show
The One Show is the world's most prestigious award show in advertising and design. For over 50 years, the Gold Pencil has been regarded as one of the top prizes in the creative industry. The One Show has a rich legacy of honoring some of the most groundbreaking ideas, created by some of the most remarkable minds in creativity.
Category
Multicultural Impact
Annual ID
OS23_CD006S
About the Work
Despite 1 in 5 people being affected by dyslexia, 97% of the population still view it negatively. This is because the current definition is outdated, classifying dyslexia as a “learning disability,” an “impairment,” or a “medical disorder.” But in fact, recent research has shown that dyslexics outperform other people at a wide variety of skills such as creativity, empathy, leadership, and outside the box thinking - skills that are especially valuable in the workplace.
So Virgin – a company famously founded by Sir Richard Branson, who is dyslexic - partnered with charity Made by Dyslexia, LinkedIn, and Dictionary.com to shift focus to the more positive term “dyslexic thinking.” To raise awareness, LinkedIn changed its platform to feature dyslexic thinking as an official skill. Dictionary.com then vetted it through their rigorous accreditation process and added it to their dictionary, cementing its place in modern culture.
Sir Richard was the first to announce that he had added the term to his LinkedIn profile, creating a groundswell of support. We also ran hyper-targeted ads on LinkedIn tailored to HR professionals encouraging them to actively seek candidates who listed “dyslexic thinking” in their profiles.
This campaign has fundamentally shifted the way the world views one of the most common forms of neurodiversity in the workplace. The term was immediately taken up internationally, with an opportunity to see of 1,046,067,131. Tracking public sentiment, we saw positive mentions about dyslexia increase by 1562%, while negative mentions decreased by 4450%. Within 30 days, 13,000 HR and recruitment leaders had also viewed the advert explaining how Dyslexic Thinkers could help take their company to the next level. Finally, over 10,200 people had added “Dyslexic Thinking” as a skill on LinkedIn, a number which continues to grow to this day and which continues to push the term into mainstream culture.
2023 Awards
Total Points: 21
Silver Pencil
Credits
Agency
FCB Inferno / London
Client / Brand
LinkedIn / London
Made By Dyslexia / London
Virgin Group / London
Chief Creative Officer
Owen Lee
Danilo Boer
Creative Director
Jessica Giles
Austin Hamilton
Designer
Dante Attuoni
Editor
Viliam Snirc
Business Affairs Manager
Caio Silva
Communications & Events Officer
Ellie Ball
Creative Producer
Rachael Clarke
Director & Editor
Alvaro Ramirez
Director of production
Nikki Chapman
EVP Communications - PR & Partnerships
Cc Clark
Founder
Kate Griggs
Group Communications & External Relations Director
Tamara Pickett
Publicity Director
Karen McNamara
Senior Content & Communications Lead
Tania Steere
Video Editor & Animator
Tomas Jenkins
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