Ikea has taken the top prize in the Health category at this year’s Cannes Lions festival for “ThisAbles,” a suite of product adaptors that make the company’s furniture and goods accessible to those with disabilities.
The product line and accompabnying video ad campaign took home the Grand Prix for Health and Wellness at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity.The campaign, created out of McCann Tel Aviv and produced by Craft London.
The film stars Eldar, a 32-year-old man who has cerebral palsy and thus, has difficulties getting off his couch at home, for example. “I do everything I can to conduct myself like everyone else,” he says in the minute-and-a-half video. “But in my own home, of all places, I’m surrounded with furniture crying out, ‘cripple.’”
Ikea’s “ThisAbles” helps solve such problems with a range of free add ons, such as pegs that attach to the feet of a sofa so it’s easier for people like Eldar to get off. The attachments are created using a 3D printer in Ikea stores, but can also be printed by anyone, anywhere, by going online. Although the offering was initially available for Ikea retail outlets in Israel, they are now accessible worldwide in 127 countries.