ICYMI: The Dyslexic Sperm Bank

The Background

Having once again ventured deep into Google to look at old campaigns, the next ICYMI isn't particularly old as it goes but may have passed some by.

A really smart idea from 2017 and the Richard Branson backed Made by Dyslexia not-for-profit, who set about launching the world's first Dyslexic Sperm Bank.

The Big Idea

'Made for Dyslexia' is a charity aimed at redefining how dyslexia is viewed in the UK.

Born out of a need for a launch moment, the team were clearly looking for a fame-driving bit of creativity that would grab attention and get the word out. Something that would capture the key concept at the heart of the charity that would effectively communicate that far from being a disability, the dyslexic mind sees the world differently and often solves problems others can't, through a unique and distinctly lateral approach.

However, with age-old stereotypes persisting and 80% of the population in the UK still seeing dyslexia as a handicap, the issues surrounding it were very real. 

School children still going undiagnosed, a stigma of dyslexia being shorthand for stupidity and a wholly negative view that was in need of reassessment.

So, to successfully launch this charity they needed to both find a way to appeal to the masses, create a debate, and turn stereotypes on their heads.  

Which is exactly what they did.

What They Did

It's hard to believe but until around 2015, such was the view of dyslexia as a pernicious 'neurological disease' that some sperm banks in the UK would regularly turn people with dyslexia away.

This shocking fact that offered a perfect catalyst for the Made for Dyslexia team to set about launching the world's first Dyslexic Sperm Bank.

Setting up shop in a pop-up retail unit in the centre of London, the location was totally transformed to ape the appearance of one of those warm and inviting drop-in style private medical centres. Rigged with hidden cameras and featuring a bespectacled doctor in a white coat behind the front desk, walls surrounded the space in which curious artworks of famous faces added a bit of colour to the white minimalist interior.

Appearing overnight and open to the public for around three days, the Dyslexic Sperm Bank naturally caught the attention of a range of intrigued passers-by. Each doing a double-take and slowly plucking up the courage to walk through the front door, the look of intrigue and slight bewilderment apparent on their faces.

With each warmly met and engaged in conversation, the onsite doctor calmly answered questions and ushered them through to look at the catalogue of faces in a laminated ring binder where the likes of Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci and The Wright Brothers featured through the pages.

Mirroring each of the artworks on the walls, everyone in the catalogue achieved great things because they saw the world in the way they did. Each one of them dyslexic.

Reactions and conversations edited into a short video in which content spliced with a cutaway to a leafleteer drumming up business by asking increasingly shocked and angry passers-by if they were interested in having a dyslexic baby the emotional impact is real. 

Watching as people flick through the binders and the conversations move from confusion to the dawning realisation that their own view of dyslexia has just changed in front of the viewers' eyes.

Very simple and exquisitely effective, you can physically see barriers coming down.

A beautiful thing to capture on-screen.