So much of what we say isn’t in the words we use, but in everything that surrounds them. It’s in the gestures we use, the facial expressions we make and the tone of voice we employ. But people with autism struggle to understand these extra cues and, as such, live in a literal world. This leads them to struggle to interpret sayings as these combinations of words cannot solely be deciphered by interpreting the words themselves.

So we turned this insight into an outreach campaign that resonated deeply with the parents of our kids and encouraged them to learn more. The project brought to life three common sayings that children with autism may struggle with, using intricate hand-made sets and puppets. This imagery was then used across a variety of print materials and brought to life in a stop-motion film and across a series of online banners.

We worked with Red Nose studios to visualise three common sayings using intricate sets and puppets. These were photographed and combined with the hand-lettered sayings and a reply/challenge from the children in each advert. For the pre-roll commercial, we brought to life one of the scenes using stop-motion animation overlaid with hand-drawn rain. The campaign will be run over a two-phased six-month period, across a wide range of appropriate channels (including but not limited to, online pre-roll, online streaming radio, offline radio and online banner ads) using programmatic media buying techniques to reach our intended target audience.

Over the first phase of the outreach campaign, enrolment of the initial cohort of participants was achieved much quicker than initially estimated. This allowed the initial phase of the study to begin earlier than expected, thereby accelerating the progress of the study. Beyond this success the materials have also gained universal praise from a leading US-based patient advocacy group and also from the investigators undertaking the study.