Charles and Yvonne de Gaulle created the Fondation Anne de Gaulle in 1945 in honor of their daughter Anne, born with Down syndrome. For 75 years, the foundation has been campaigning to make society more inclusive for the mentally disabled. But still to this day, they remain mostly invisible and excluded from much of society, including public transport. For the Foundation, this was unacceptable. Our challenge was to give an unprecedented media visibility to the foundation’s cause.

Our strategy and activation enabled the Foundation to reassert its refusal to accept things as they are. It also endorsed calls by other charity organizations for a paradigm shift in support for people with disabilities. Worldwide, one in six people live with a disability.

The campaign had tremendous PR and social media repercussions. More than 200 articles were published in 13 different countries, with over €1 million in earned media and reach of 50 million. A large number of political and institutional figures, social entrepreneurs and artists known for taking a stand on disability rights shared the operation on social media.

Our strategy and activation enabled the Foundation to reassert its refusal to accept things as they are. In addition, it endorsed the call from other charity organizations for a paradigm shift in the support available for people with disabilities. Groupe ADP, which operates Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, used the operation to kick-start its transformation aimed at improving accessibility for people with disabilities ready in time for the Paris Olympic Games in 2024.

To create as much buzz as possible, we changed the name of the largest public infrastructure in France, an infrastructure with direct lineage to the foundation’s history: Charles de Gaulle Airport.

We changed the façade of the terminal: “Anne De Gaulle” was written up in gigantic letters. Luggage tags, carts, queue signage, boarding passes, every screen in every terminal – even road signs – featured the name Anne de Gaulle. We turned the largest airport in Europe into a gigantic media placement opportunity.

With a simple change in name, we sparked a national conversation in the media, making mental disability impossible to ignore.