Ikea's 'ThisAbles' wins Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Health and Wellness

Ikea’s “ThisAbles,” a suite of product adaptors that make the company's furniture and goods accessible to those with disabilities, took home the Grand Prix for Health and Wellness at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. The campaign, created out of McCann Tel Aviv and produced by Craft London, also features a film promoting the goods. It stars Eldar Yusupov, a 32-year-old man who has cerebral palsy and thus, has difficulties getting off his couch at home, for example. “I do everything I can to conduct myself like everyone else,” he says in the minute-and-a-half video. “But in my own home, of all places, I’m surrounded with furniture crying out, ‘cripple.’” More fromCannes Lions 2019 At Cannes, Comcast urges TV industry to expand addressable advertising IPG's chief diversity & inclusion officer says that the most important catalyst for improved diversity is 'executive will' Cannes Lions 2019: Grand Prix winners Ikea's "ThisAbles" helps solve such problems with a range of free add ons, such as pegs that attach to the feet of a sofa so it’s easier for people like Eldar to get off. The attachments are created using a 3D printer in Ikea stores, but can also be printed by anyone, anywhere, by going online. Although the offering was initially available for Ikea retail outlets in Israel, they are now accessible worldwide in 127 countries. And in a surprising twist, Eldar is also a copywriter for McCann and helped conceive the "ThisAbles" line. “It shows how important diversity is for our industry,” Shaheed Peera, jury president and executive creative director of Publicis LifeBrands, Publicis Resolute and Real Science, said. “Health is now everyone’s business,” Peera added in regards to trends jurors saw from this year’s submissions. “The type of work we’re seeing, if we go back seven or eight years, we would imagine these brands would never have a role.” Peera said jurors looked at how technology is being used, but added that simply using technology didn’t result in an award. “This is not CES,” he said. “Did the technology bring a level of humanity? The ideas that broke through were very scalable.”

Ikea's 'ThisAbles' wins Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Health and Wellness

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