Marketing

LEO puts Campaign articles on e-reader for advertising students with dyslexia


LEO, a dyslexia-friendly e-reading platform, has partnered Campaign to make some of the magazine’s best articles accessible for advertising students with dyslexia.

Students will be able to read, listen to or watch selected articles after LEO invited the author of each piece to record an audio and video version of what they originally wrote for Campaign.

Dave Trott, co-founder of GGT and Campaign columnist, Nils Leonard, co-founder of Uncommon Creative Studio, Matt Adams, a creative at Dark Horses, and Brittaney Kiefer, former creativity and culture editor of Campaign, have recorded the articles.

Starting on 26 July, one article will be made available each week for free over the summer through LEO’s customisable e-reading platform at www.leoreader.com

Leonard’s article, “Skip ad, skip ad industry, skip brand: we’re in trouble but trouble is inspiring”, is the first to appear on LEO as part of the Campaign partnership.

LEO said the platform chose the articles to give students a diverse range of viewpoints and information about the advertising industry – with subject matter ranging from creative ambition, to the unsung women of advertising, to life as a junior creative.

James Hillhouse, Kat Pegler and Alex Fleming set up LEO after research conducted by Commercial Break, a youth transformation agency, revealed the extent to which lengthy reading lists were intimidating and discouraging dyslexic students from further education.

LEO’s mission is “to help create a stronger bridge between the advertising and neuro-diverse students – people who are known to thrive in the industry… once they get here”.

The e-reader is equipped with features such as customisable text, audio/video from a real human, a dictionary and focus mode to support dyslexia students.

Hillhouse said: “We’re incredibly excited to be partnering with Campaign, one of advertising’s great institutions. These articles give a priceless insight into the industry as it is and as it could be. This partnership is further proof that Campaign is determined to build a better, more inclusive, future for the industry, and we salute them for that.”

An estimated one in seven people (nearly 15%) in the UK is neurodivergent in some way, according to Acas.

In the ad industry, that number is higher. Creative Equals found in its 2020 Equality Standard Accreditation survey that 18% of employees in advertising, marketing and media have one or more neurodiverse traits.

Universal Music’s 2020 report Creative Differences estimated that the proportion of people who are neurodiverse across all creative industries is almost double that of the general public.

Because many people may not disclose their conditions to their employers or are undiagnosed, that figure could be even higher.

Gideon Spanier, UK editor-in-chief of Campaign, said: “There is a strong link between neurodiversity and creativity and Campaign is pleased to support LEO’s efforts to make the advertising business more accessible.”

Other Campaign articles that will be available on LEO in the coming weeks are Trott on empathy, Adams and his Dark Horses colleague Will Butler on being a junior creative, and Kiefer on neurodiversity and the unsung women of advertising.

LEO and Campaign plan to make other articles available in the future.

For more information, contact team@leoreader.com

 



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