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Easter Seals Posters FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH Terry Bremmer, 1997, Creative Director - Campbell, Mithun, Esty TERRY BREMMER: We've been the agency for the National Easter Seal Society for over ten years--they are one of our larger clients in terms of the amount of work we do. They just don't give us any money. But they are no less of an account for us than any other. They're an important brand for us. They're a national figure in the charity world and one of the better-run organizations of their kind. We were going to use it as an opportunity to meet other clients. Charitable organizations have to find a different way to raise money. They just can't simply beg. They can't simply go on the air and put a 800-number down and say, "Give us money." They have to find other ways to stimulate people to give, because there are so many people out there asking for money that you have to, you just can't do it by traditional methods anymore. We have three constituents. We've got certainly the people who work for Easter Seals, and all of their affiliates, because if they're not excited about what we're doing, they won't distribute the materials, they'll go off and do it themselves. We have the people who are ultimately going to give money. We have to somehow get on their list of approved charitable organizations, somebody they say, "Yes, I know who these people are, I respect them, and they are worthy of whatever monies I can give this year." And third, and not a distant third--maybe first, I don't know--are people in the disabled community. They have to welcome what we're doing, and they have to feel like they're being represented in a way that is meaningful and gives some of the dignity that they deserve to have. If you use anybody for anything, the person being used is never helped. At least, that's my view of it. I have some personal experience with disability, in that I have congenital scoliosis, a curvature of the spine. I'm not disabled, but I think I have some sensitivities to what other, what people with more severe disabilities have. I understand some of the emotional sides of what they may feel, I know what a person who has braces on their legs feels like when they walk into a room and somebody looks at them. And they look at the disability. They don't look at the face. We interviewed a guy once who had a prosthetic hand, and asked him what was the worst thing about having a disability. And I think I expected him to say something like, "Well, I wish I could pick something up and I can't do that." He said the worst part about having a disability is people meet it before they meet you. So we did a commercial, "The Party." It begins with someone opening a door, and the camera's down here, looking up, and a woman opens the door, a good-looking young woman, and she does this kind of a turn-away, and now we go into the party, and the camera is this person's head, and you see different people, who are in conversation, look over this way. Various heads turn and swivel to see, but they're kind of uneasy. They're not comfortable with what they see. And then finally we see this guy in a wheelchair, wheeling down the hallway, towards a friend, who says, "Well, hi, Fred, have you met everybody?" And then the announcer says, "Sometimes the hardest thing about having a disability is that people meet it before they meet you." People, able-bodied people, who see that commercial cringe when they see it, because they see themselves. They understand that that's exactly what they do. See also GETTING IN THE DOOR - Work Highlights |
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