BT

Adverts: Talent Spotting (Video phone) and Gizmo (In Touch pendant)

Talent Spotting was an advert featuring 2 deaf women signing over a videophone and checking out the male talent in the office. Gizmo was the advert featuring a grandfather in a garden with grandson talking about space - grandfather was wearing an In Touch carer phone wristband with emergency button. Both were corporate campaigns rather than about the products shown.

Effectiveness

• Talent Spotting and Gizmo achieved BT's highest ever tracking results for New Information (80% and 68% vs. a 50% target) and Brand Appeal (65% and 62% vs. a 49% target).
• Both measures are essential prerequisites for effective advertising, which needs to deliver new news and challenge pre-conceptions of BT, giving people new ways to think about the brand.
• The campaign led to re-appraisal of BT with significant uplifts on 'made me think again about BT' (+7%) and 'BT can meet all my communications needs' (+10%).
• The campaign delivered a return on investment of 8.5:1.
• BT received a Gold in the Disability category for Talent Spotting at the Marketing Week Effectiveness Awards in 2003.

Employees with disabilitties

BT encourage applications from people with disabilities and support their professional development; BT qualifies as a 'Two Ticks' disability employer showing their commitment to disabled potential employees and customers. Overall, 2 per cent of BT employees have declared themselves to have a disability. This represents 2.5 per cent of non-managers, 1.3 per cent of managers and 0.6 per cent of senior managers. However this is believed to be an under-declaration since five per cent of BT employees who completed the 2006 CARE survey said they have a disability.

Able2 is an employee network for BT people with disabilities. It provides impartial advice and runs roadshows where people can discuss their needs with senior BT managers, and eNable is designed to improve the working life of BT people with disabilities. It provides many services including a helpline for people who are disabled, guidance on job redesign to ensure that disabled employees are given jobs they can fulfil completely, advice to managers on their responsibilities under the UK Disabilities discrimination act and to ensure all new recruits with disabilities feel supported. Customer-facing employees also receive disability awareness training. An intranet site on disability awareness and the law is available to everyone in the company and provides on-line training.

BT held a Disability and the Business Case event in the BT Auditorium in November 2005. Participants discussed questions such as: Does the business case [for diversity/disability] really exist? Is it just a concept or is it a useful tool? Speakers included Sue Maynard Campbell MBE and Peter White, the BBC's Disability Correspondent. They have also published a booklet on mental health issues, called "1 in 4", helping employees understand mental health issues and access the resources they may need.

BT support and provide office space for AbilityNet, a charity bringing computer technology to adults and children with disabilities. The organisation's presence in BT also gives easier access to expert assessment and advice.

The Able to Work project, created by BT, increases the number of disabled people employed in BT call centres. This project has been expanded this year to include links with the National Autistic Society. BT have also launched the Diversity Works Leadership College in association with Scope, the disability charity and Ashridge Management College. This will give disabled people in BT access to tailored career development and leadership training. BT are members of Scope's Leadership Recruitment scheme that places disabled graduates in employment and provides personal development training and career development to increase their employability.

From April 2006 to March 2007 BT will research and agree a set of measures, which will enable the benchmarking of diversity profiles both internally and externally on a global basis, (where effective benchmarking material exists globally). Work has continued to ensure that BT's policy and practice reflect the spirit and intent of the disability vision. Benchmarking themselves on the Employer Forum on Disability Benchmark. The results have been used as the basis for a strategy which have been developed over the course of the year to tackle any problems within BT related to disability.