There are more than 84.000 deaf people in Portugal. Although they may seemlike a silent minority, they do speak Portuguese and crave to be understood. Our goal: raise awareness for Portuguese sign language. But how?

In a 20 second TV spot, we changed the rules of the game, creating a commercial that only the deaf could fully understand: “Carlos conversation”.

Carlos, a deaf teenager, stood in front of a camera and “spoke” to the audience. For a few seconds, the viewers experienced the same thing that deaf people do – they remained unaware of the message brought by Carlos. Why? Because Carlos used exclusively sign language to convey his message. Standing on the other side of the mirror for the first time, the audience was struck by surprise. Until the revelation came: “Deaf people speak Portuguese too. Learn to listen”.