Vanish Supporting Autism Advert

[Tealsofa]

I don't normally watch terrestrial TV, but watching the voyage of the dawn treader on C4, and the advert for vanish keeps coming up.

It looks like a deep meaningful maybe a charity or awareness advert, and then it's "vanish" a cleaning product

My ds (autistic) was also wtf about it

This Really wouldn’t be hard because you know, autistic people are still people can and live fun, fulfilling, and exciting lives too. is what I was talking about when I said the ad campaign has made an ‘easy’ choice rather than a ‘powerful’ choice.

Not all autistic people have the opportunity and/or the capacity to live ‘fun, fulfilling and exciting lives’- certainly not that would be recognised as such by the viewing public.

My comment is not about the ease or hardship of the family life depicted but about the easy choice for Vanish to depict an attractive person who fits the acceptable ‘able but different’ narrative that represented a step forward 20-30 years ago.

But then unlike @Turquoisesilver I've seen a lot of sibling impacts - out of my acquaintances a fair few of the siblings have been diagnosed with their own MH issues. Depression, anxiety, self-harm

?

To plug their brand...

...sorry I stick by my original point thanks.

Indeed they don't, similarly though many such as the girl in the advert are dismissed and some say she can't be autistic because she can do x, she looks like y or she doesn't find it as challenging as z. That's also harmful for people. I guess going back to the point a PP made earlier for children who are very much at the other end of the spectrum it probably wouldn't be ethical to include them in an advert if they couldn't make an informed decision for themselves as others who are autistic can. I think a lot of people are expecting perfection or an all encompassing advert which would be impossible in 3.5 minutes.

I guess the point is do companies or whoever else attempt to be inclusive or do they just say fuck it easier to have the same old able bodied, NT model promoting their products? I wouldn't be a fan of this if the actress was NT, but realistically this echoes her experience and why shouldn't it be as valid as someone else's? I don't think she or the advert claims to represent everyone with autism.

@RedToothBrush

’ND people are not sufficiently represented in the media, no wonder they are not understood by NT people’

‘ Let’s do an ad with ND people in as part of our not for profit advertising budget’

’you’ve Included your brand in your ad ! Disgusting, you’ve done it wrong’

’ let’s do rescue puppies this year, everyone likes them’

‘ no one ever shows ND people in their advertising. Ableists!’

🤷🏼

I'm lost as to why you think I implied it was a competition?

I'm just sick of seeing this advert trumpeted as some sort of amazing insight or representation. I don't like the way Vanish are using ND people to sell their product (which I also don't like). And I wonder how many ND people Vanish actually employ 🤔

They are advertising a product. Not people.

Does the stain come out of the clothes? Yes.

Are the people in the advert relevant to stains in clothes? No.

I don't wish for a morality lecture from someone flogging stain removal products.

A drama / documentary which turns people into 3 dimensional characters is completely different thing rather than a couple of minutes of something that lots of people on her have wildly different impressions of - some of which are really not positive at all - whilst flogging soap powder.

How can you tell that all the people on the vanish adverts have been NT previously anyway? It's your bias to suggest they were.

I'm so over the virtue signaling which doesn't actually educate anyone on anything and is framed as educational when it's just marketing to make £££

How about including us and not just because we're ND?
Instead of being hired for an ad as a one-off because of my autism, I would rather the company gave me a job without the dilemma of either having to tick the "no disability" box and struggle on if I do get hired, or tick it and run the risk of not getting hired because of it (and I know it's illegal to discriminate, but I'm not naive enough to think other applicants really are more qualified/closely match the job description all the time).

That sort of inclusion and awareness would benefit me more than 4 minutes of a badly executed and in my opinion, fairly damaging, advert.

It could only compromise her GDPR if she and her family did not consent.

I am autistic and have autistic teens. For years we have had the struggles with clothing, anxiety, school, siblings, etc.

When i saw the ad i found it jarring to have such a realistic portrayal of my family, and many families we knows life, in an ad break. Then when i saw it was actually an advert for a completely unrelated product, it made me feel even more weird.

I’m not saying its bad or good, i just don’t really get the placement, or the link to Vanish

@MoreChilli

Yes I thought that about the drums too. It happens to be drums in their family but in ours it's teen DD walking in circles in front of the TV and shouting her name very loudly over and over when we are trying to watch TV in peace. Then half an hour later putting her hands over her ears as everyone is being too loud (including the car radio being on at normal volume) - those 2 shots really resonated with me.

No danger of this being exploitative of this yp? Wow.

No I am telling you it was a competion for advertisers to make an advert that had a neurodiverse theme in order to raise awareness. They are not using autistic people quite the opposite.

Why are you so sure that these people didn't or couldn't consent?

So all this money raised to help support autism has actually gone on an advertising campaign where there is a massive problem with people especially kids getting autism diagnosis.

How many people could have got that paid for privately rather than spent on a fucking advert?

Or how many schools could have got donations to help with SEN budgets?

Sorry, but it annoys me even more knowing this.

It's the charity sector spunking money up the wall on PR rather than actually helping people.

You might have gathered that I don’t think it showed amazing insight.

Your comment made me think though- I bet they employ a fairly average number of ND people, but I’d be really curious to know if they are aware of their ND employees or what reasonable adjustments they offer…?

I don't understand vanish paid for their own advertisement it didn't come from charity fund there was no monetary prize.

Of course you don't, you're not a fan of HF autistic people.

@RedToothBrush
here https://www.channel4.com/press/news/me-my-autism-and-i-vanish-unveils-its-channel-4-diversity-advertising-award-winning

I’m another one who cried. My beautiful nieces live that life.

Girls present so differently to boys.

Knowing what? You've just made that up.

No I haven't.

I have fuck all time for this type of crap.

I HATE the charity sector pissing money on not actually doing stuff directly and spunking it all on PR.

You can check my posting history on this. It's something I dislike intensely.

HTH.

Her experience is perfectly valid. I just don’t think that brand advertising is the best medium to raise awareness and I don’t think they’re doing anything ‘powerful’ or ‘insightful’ anyway. There are always myriad excuses why more ‘disabling’ disabilities can’t be featured and they’re just excuses.

Not a fan? Hilarious. And inappropriate. You don’t have much insight yourself it seems.

You are claiming the charity has spend funds on an advertising campaign.

Where is the source for that?