Our film was part of the UK’s largest autism “Too Much Information” which we are creating with NAS.

To help people understand what it can feel like to experience sensory overload, as well as recognise it when they see it, we combined two powerful storytelling techniques. First, a POV perspective to give people the chance to “be” an autistic child as they become overwhelmed. Our moment of empathy. Secondly, at the end of the video, we snapped them back to the role of spectator to see the little boy from a distance. Our moment of clarity.

Before they’d seen the film, most people would probably have mistaken the little boy’s behaviour as a tantrum (much like the judgemental woman who walks past him at the end). Having walked a metaphorical mile in his shoes, they now understood what they were seeing, and their understanding of the situation was transformed.

The release was timed to kick off the start of World Autism Awareness Week meaning there would be a nice foundation of existing online chatter to build upon. We organised two placements on major content aggregator sites ahead of launch to help boost views in the first couple of days.

The video was uploaded to Facebook by the National Autistic Society, HelloU and Upworthy natively as well as to the charity’s YouTube channel. We partnered with Unruly to secure video placements both In-Stream and In-Page across the internet, putting the film in front of audiences tailored to the ‘Women over 30’ target demographic. We also utilised the wider campaigns partnership with The Guardian to place and promote the video across the 20 million reach of the Guardians readership.

UPDATED RESULTS:

Total views: 55.4M+

414K+ reactions

47K+ comments

964K+ shares

80+ pieces of coverage

Guardian front page x 2

BBC coverage on TV and online

The film had a call to action at the end to ‘Sign up’ to the map to show everyone making the UK more autism-friendly. The goal was to achieve 30,000 sign ups in the first year or the campaign. This film has resulted in 10,000 in the first five days