The RNIB WhatsIn Store - RNIB | Clapboard Ad Archive
RNIB’s The RNIB WhatsIn Store, developed with The&Partnership and released in the United Kingdom in the public service category in 2021, positions accessible design as both a human right and urgent commercial imperative for brands seeking genuine inclusivity in the retail experience. Drawing sharply on its experiential, documentary-style execution, the campaign foregrounds the entrenched barriers faced by blind and partially sighted shoppers who, in a world of visually-centric packaging and design, are systematically denied critical product information most take for granted. By rendering the lived frustrations of this audience through social experimentation and authentic storytelling, the work directly exposes the inadequacy of current retail norms and uses these real-world moments as a rallying point for systemic change. What Clapboard’s taxonomy would classify as FORMAT#2—Show the Problem, the campaign suspends sentimentality in favor of hard truths and practical demonstration, compelling viewers and decision-makers alike to confront the scale and solvability of the inclusion gap rather than distracting with metaphor or celebrity. The agency’s strategy to catalyze sharing of the core campaign film extends the movement’s reach, speaking to both the business logic and moral imperative behind the #DesignForEveryone rallying cry, while also reinforcing RNIB’s position as a proactive accessibility leader and trusted advocate for those with visual impairments. Rather than positioning inclusive design as a niche or specialist concern, the work targets decision-makers across mainstream brands, product teams, and packaging designers, leveraging social beaconing and an open invitation for industry collaboration to elevate accessible design from regulatory compliance to real innovation. Empowered by a documentary approach that resists earnest platitudes, RNIB and The&Partnership argue—without saying as much—that the marketplace is overdue for a reckoning on who truly gets to participate, and presents a credible blueprint for extending equal access through design, technology, and policy. The campaign earns 71/100 in Clapboard’s global creative archive. The RNIB WhatsIn Store matters because it reframes accessibility in public service marketing as a challenge to the industry’s most fundamental assumptions, demanding that creative and commercial leaders solve for a universal user instead of relegating inclusion to the periphery.
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