Google gives users around the world access to free accessibility products like Live Transcribe, Captions in Google Meet & Live Caption on Android and Chrome which make a significant difference in communication and connection for all users. Google and ABC/Disney worked together on a novel project: redefining a conventional Oscars sponsorship to bring viewers real help in a meaningful way. The result? Audio descriptions for low-vision viewers accompanied the broadcast for the first time in the show’s history alongside existing closed captioning.

The goal for this experience was to bring a meaningful improvement to the Oscar viewing experience while bringing awareness to Google’s Live Transcribe, Captions in Google Meet & Live Caption on Android and Chrome. Accompanying television ad creative featured the story of Google employee Tony Lee, a child of deaf parents (CODA).

For the 93rd Oscar ceremony, Google leveraged its sponsorship position to push the Academy to explore how the show could be more accessible. This led to Google supporting the cost of audio descriptions, most significantly expanding accessibility for blind and low vision viewers. While the Oscars featured closed captioning for decades, this was the first broadcast with audio descriptions. Google’s in-show commitment to accessibility was underscored by ad creative highlighting Google accessibility tools such as Transcribe, Captions in Google Meet & Live Caption on Android and Chrome.

The ad explores how Google senior designer Tony Lee, a child of deaf parents (CODA), communicates with his family using Google technology. The accessibility sponsorship was promoted via a pre-show moment, three in-show moments, an audio description lower-third bug and four tagged tune-ins.

Our target audiences for this sponsorship consisted of not only the visually and hearing-impaired Oscar audience, but the wider general audience as well. Many viewers use closed-captioning to enhance their Oscars experience, and we believe audio descriptions gave similar enhancements across audiences. Prominently placed sponsorship mentions on the Oscars broadcast made Google’s involvement clear, and the broadcast was accompanied by a larger integrated campaign including digital shorts, paid social and a Google Keyword post showcasing Google’s helpful assistive features for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community and the Googlers building them.

Google approached the sponsorship inclusively, using its media budget to bring real accessibility to the Oscars. Specialists from Audio Eye and VITAC working at the event generated live audio descriptions and automatically produced commentary for viewers of the event watching on their television. This difficult task involved monitoring the awards in real time, quickly writing descriptions of the action on-screen (including who is speaking, what they are wearing, and how they are emoting) while making sure descriptions occurred in natural speech during breaks in on-air dialogue. Following the Oscars broadcast debut, a campaign of digital shorts highlighting Google accessibility products was promoted across YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter, along with a trends-based social campaign teaching people how to sign common phrases, and a Google Keyword blog post showcasing Google’s helpful assistive features for the Deaf/HoH community.

Reaction in both traditional and social media to the first-ever inclusion of live audio descriptions showed that there was a substantial audience hungry for inclusion. In perhaps the greatest possible testament to the positive change Google brought to last year’s Oscars, ABC/Disney then included audio descriptions as part of the 94th Academy Awards without the need for sponsor funding. The descriptions are expected to be a standard part of future broadcasts.

After seeing the impact of its sponsorship on the Oscars, Google leveraged its media spend in other areas to provide live closed-captioning in more than 50 live sport broadcasts, some for the first time. This included NBA, WNBA, NWSL, Liga MX, UEFA CL, Concacaf and Copa America broadcasts.