Degree Inclusive - Degree | Clapboard Ad Archive

Degree’s Inclusive campaign, launched in the United States in 2021 and developed in partnership with Wunderman Thompson, represents a seismic shift for the beauty sector, where product innovation has historically excluded the needs of people with disabilities despite one in four Americans and one in five Brits belonging to this community. Operating squarely in the Beauty, Health, and Personal Accessories market, Degree—long associated with championing the power of movement—identified a stark gap: existing deodorant formats create an invisible barrier for people with upper limb disabilities, making something as routine as keeping fresh a daily struggle and often dissuading movement altogether. This campaign roots itself in a core human insight—that access to personal care is not just functional, but central to confidence, wellbeing, and social participation—and works to dismantle this barrier through a truly collaborative product development process that engaged disability consultants, occupational therapists, and engineers alongside the Inclusive Experience Practice at Wunderman Thompson. The outcome is the world’s first adaptive deodorant, a wholly reimagined device engineered for ease of grip, one-handed use, and tactile navigation, proving that personal hygiene routines can in fact be radically accessible. The integrated campaign leverages storytelling techniques focused on specific, lived realities—illustrated through figures like Nick, a boxer whose daily victories extend well beyond the ring—to personify both the problem and the triumph of adaptive design. By doing so, Degree Inclusive powerfully humanizes the stakes, advances industry dialogue around inclusive product strategy, and disrupts a complacent category where universal access is too often deprioritized. In a campaign approach sitting squarely in Clapboard’s FORMAT#2—Show the Problem, Then the Solution—Degree spotlights the everyday exclusion of people with disabilities and then offers its revolutionary design as a direct response, communicating both urgency and hope through integrated narrative and product demonstration. Clapboard rates this 79/100. The campaign matters because it models how true inclusion in beauty and personal care requires co-creation with the communities most underserved, signaling to the industry that design equity is both a moral imperative and a commercial opportunity that can reshape the category for all.