Bringing BSL to the Beautiful Game

Client: Cadbury Fingers

Cadbury Fingers was entering the second year of its ‘Sign With Fingers Big and Small’ initiative - a partnership with the National Deaf Children’s Society, aimed at encouraging the nation to learn some BSL and help deaf people feel more included in everyday shared moments.

Research told us that football is the most popular sport amongst deaf people. But the fact that 55% of people with deafness regularly feel left out of match day experiences due to a lack of deaf awareness is no cause for celebration.

We leveraged an existing commercial partnership with Chelsea FC, and developed an emotive campaign that started with 40,000 football fans making history at Stamford Bridge with a heart-warming half time performance of iconic Chelsea club anthem ‘Blue is the Colour’ in British Sign Language. Chelsea’s top players got in on the action, learning a range of everyday BSL phrases and long-term commitments were made to improve deaf inclusion across the club.

The campaign achieved:

• Blanket coverage in the media

• 4.6 million organic views of our content in one month

• 17% increase in association of the Cadbury Fingers brand and its purpose of ‘everyday moments of connection’

• Since the campaign, 50% of Brits would now consider learning some BSL for the purposes of inclusion

The campaign also contributed to the brand’s double digit growth leading Cadbury Fingers to take the number 1 spot in the sweet biscuits equity index in 2023