What Comes Next

What if 12 of Nashville's most iconic songwriters, including Dolly Parton, wrote the alt text for a state tourism website?
 
That's exactly what happened when the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development (TDTD) hired VML to reimagine their site's accessibility.  Dr. Josh Loebner, VML’s former Head of Inclusive Design, replaced simple compliance with creativity, driving a 36% increase in web traffic for TDTD. 
 
In this episode of What Comes Next, Josh tells the story of the award-winning Tennessee Sound Sites campaign, which recruited world-renowned songwriters Dolly Parton, Kix Brooks, and more to write poetic, lyrical alt text for Tennessee imagery to welcome blind and low-vision travelers to the state.
 
In this episode:
00:00 Intro
02:12 Meet Dr. Josh Loebner, former Head of Inclusive Design at VML04:13 Why tourism imagery excludes a large market segment
05:32 The idea for poetic alt text for Tennessee 
08:47 The choice to bring in songwriters vs. AI 
09:55 What makes good vs bad alt text 
18:39  Co-creation with the blind community
28:08 How VML measured the success of the campaign
35:00 Advice for brands & agencies to recreate VML’s success
37:48 What comes next 
 
A NOTE FROM THIS RECORDING: As mentioned in the opening, this conversation was recorded on August 24th and is dedicated to Dolly Parton's memory. We left the conversation as it happened.
 
The What Comes Next podcast is sponsored by Making Space and Level Access, powered by AW360, Advertising Week's year-round content platform.
 
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The Sound Sites Campaign: https://www.vml.com/work/sound-sites?theme=9 
Learn more about Level Access: levelaccess.com 
Learn more about Making Space: making-space.com 
Follow Josh Loebner: @Josh Loebner on LinkedIn
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What if 350 million people couldn’t use your products? That’s the size of the colorblind consumer market. And this is the story of how global play company Mattel tapped into it. 
In this episode of What Comes Next, the founder of ColorADD, Miguel Neiva, puts our hosts to the test with a live challenge, then reveals the universal symbol system he designed to make visual aids accessible for everyone.
Hosts Keely Cat-Wells and Dana Randall sit down with Miguel to explore how a childhood illness led to a design language now used by 62+ games and transit systems worldwide, including the household favorite, UNO.
Miguel talks us through his process for designing an accessible product, how accessible design can help with form not just function, and how Mattel's colorblind accessible UNO deck drove a 66% jump in sales.
In this episode:
00:00 — Intro 
01:00 — The untapped market
08:17 — The origin of the ColorADD x Mattel partnership
12:54 — How accessible design impacted sales 
14:36 — Navigating challenges implementing accessible design
15:49 — Building with the colorblind community
17:41 — How to design accessibly AND beautifully
34:40 — What comes next?
The What Comes Next podcast is sponsored by Making Space and Level Access, powered by AW360, Advertising Week's year-round content platform.
Subscribe so you never miss an episode. New conversations drop every other Tuesday.
Learn more about Level Access: levelaccess.com 
Learn more about Making Space: making-space.com 
Learn more about ColorADD: coloradd.net 
Follow Miguel Nieva: @Miguel Nieva on LinkedIn
Follow Level Access: @LevelAccessA11y on YouTube
Follow Making Space: @_making_space__ on Instagram
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How do you speak to an audience if you’re afraid of saying the wrong thing?
In today’s episode, Forbes 30 Under 30 creator, speaker, and author of Unseen, Molly Burke, gives brands a playbook for authentically marketing to Disabled consumers. Molly takes Keely and Dana behind the scenes of her Ray-Ban Meta x Be My Eyes influencer marketing campaign to share what happens when a brand creates with, not just for, the Disability community.
Molly shares about the origin of her Meta partnership, how she approached the AI and accessibility conversation in campaign content with nuance, the campaign KPIs and broader impact, and how brands can leverage Disabled creators authentically in the future.
In this episode:
 
The What Comes Next podcast is sponsored by Making Space and Level Access, powered by AW360 - Advertising Week's year-round content platform.
Subscribe so you never miss an episode. New conversations drop every other Tuesday.
Learn more about Level Access: levelaccess.com
Learn more about Making Space: making-space.com
Follow Molly Burke: @mollyburkeofficial on Instagram
Follow Level Access: @LevelAccessA11y on YouTube
Follow Making Space: @_making_space__ on Instagram
Follow Advertising Week: @advertisingweek on Instagram
 

The North Face (TNF) wanted to make its camping gear more accessible for Disabled customers. But in doing so, they actually improved their products for kids, parents, and numerous other customer segments. That’s the power of universal design.
This is the story behind The North Face’s Universal Collection of camping gear released this past April. In this episode, you’ll meet TNF athlete, ski pioneer, and Disability access strategist Vasu Sojitra and Senior Manager of Internal Communications and Community at TNF, Wade Balmer. Vasu and Wade take us through the eight-year arc from the question that changed everything to a post-it-covered prototype tent, to the marketing campaign featuring Disabled athletes. We learn why TNF made the deliberate choice to market the collection around its technology and performance rather than around disability alone and how they measured success beyond sales.
For advertisers, marketers, and designers, this is a case study in identifying an overlooked audience, building trust with that community before launch, and marketing a product without either erasing or tokenizing the identity it was built for.
In this episode:
0:00 — Intro
5.15  — The question that changed everything
2.39  — What is Universal Design?
7:30  —  The project pitch
12:56 — Testing and prototyping
16:02 — Are accessibility and sleek design mutually exclusive?
18.30 — Authentic Disability representation in the marketing campaign
24:50 — What was the response to the campaign?
33.14 — What comes next for accessible design in the outdoors space?
Learn more about The North Face Universal Collection: https://www.thenorthface.com/en-us/c/shop-all/universal-collection-829924
Learn more about Level Access: levelaccess.com
Learn more about Making Space: making-space.com
Follow Vasu Sojitra: @vasu_sojitra on Instagram
Follow Wade Balmer: @Wade Balmer on LinkedIn
Follow Level Access: @LevelAccessA11y on YouTube
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Designer Bailey Hikawa accidentally made an accessible product. And now it’s sold by Apple and used by Disabled people everywhere. This is the story behind the Hikawa iPhone Grip and Stand and how tapping into an underserved market helped Bailey sell her entire collection quicker than she could have imagined.
In this premiere episode of What Comes Next, hosts Keely Cat-Wells and Dana Randall chat with Bailey Hikawa to discuss her collaboration with Apple, the iterative process of building an iPhone grip that works for many bodies, and why meaningful design happens at the intersection of art and lived experience.
Bailey discusses her process gathering insights from Disabled consumers, her budgetary considerations when designing an accessible product, and how she marketed the product authentically to the Disability community.
In this episode:
0:00 — Intro: What is the Hikawa Phone Grip and Stand?
1:45 — The Apple collaboration story
5:30 — Designing with the disability community
10:15 — "Pressure is a gift", the creative process
14:20 — Why phones are assistive devices for everyone
18:00 — Serving an “invisible” market
22:30 — Many designs for many bodies
Learn more about the Hikawa iPhone Grip and Stand: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/hsje2zm/a/hikawa-grip-stand-for-iphone-magsafe-compatible-glow-blue
Learn more about Level Access: levelaccess.com
Learn more about Making Space: making-space.com
Follow Bailey Hikawa: @baileyhikawa on Instagram
Follow Level Access: @LevelAccessA11y on YouTube
Follow Making Space: @_making_space__ on Instagram
Follow Advertising Week: @advertisingweek on Instagram

What Comes Next tells the story of accessible products, their marketing campaigns, and the impact they drive for businesses and society. Tune in for interviews with the leaders behind the Hikawa Grip and Stand for iPhone released in collaboration with Apple, North Face’s Universal Camping Collection, Mattel’s colorblind accessible Uno Deck, the Meta Ray-Bans and BeMyEyes integration, and more!
Available July 7th.
An Advertising Week podcast, sponsored by Level Access and Making Space.