Deaf Awareness Week runs every May in the UK to raise awareness of the challenges of deafness and hearing loss faced by around 9 million people.

Unfortunately, much activity goes unnoticed by those not directly affected.

Aldi, a long-standing supporter of the charity, wanted to help boost the nation’s understanding. 9 million people also happens to be the number of viewers watching each episode of ‘Coronation Street’. (A show with fifty years’ history, reflecting everyday life in the UK.)

Aldi, the discount supermarket, has long compared its own brand with leading brands.

Most people like both but people like Aldi low prices in particular. We had a brief in for fish fingers: Aldi versus Birds Eye. This time, why not choose people for the commercial who were deaf and use sign language throughout? In fact, why stop there? Let’s sign the whole ad break and all the commercials in it.

We chose UK Deaf Awareness Week to launch this and try to bring maximum awareness to a much under-represented group of people who, like me and you, also like fish fingers.

Every ad on British TV is unsigned. We needed to somehow bring together ITV, clients, media and creative agencies, to encourage them to, effectively, hand over their existing advertisements for us to ‘sign’ them. This collaboration ultimately included:

Microsoft, Gaviscon, Nurofen, Matalan, Velux, WeBuyAnyCar and Moneysupermarket.

All credit to these advertisers and their agencies in helping us make this happen.

A mother and her young daughter sit together in a kitchen. Two packs of fish fingers are shown on the table top: one pack is Birds Eye, the other is Aldi’s own brand. As the girl eats a fish finger or two, she explains she likes both brands. The mother playfully tells her “not to talk with her mouth full”. The whole scene is played out in silence as both mother and daughter are deaf. Captions show the entire conversation.

The commercials then following are all signed by the mother or the daughter in the Aldi advert. Finally, there is a closing ad where the mother and daughter ‘sign off’.

• This became the first ever entirely signed ad break.

• 600k more people specially tuned in to see it.

(versus the previous week’s episode).

• It produced 4 times greater awareness of Deaf Awareness Week for those who saw the advert, than those who didn’t.

• One third of all viewers were more likely to consider shopping at Aldi as a result.

• Two thirds of people who saw the break said they were more aware of the challenges of hearing loss in society.

• Massive impact for under £250k.