People experiencing sight loss face a multitude of challenges every single day but one of the largest barriers they face is public misconceptions and stereotypes. This is the insight that sits at the heart of The&Partnership’s latest campaign for the Royal National Institute of Bling people (RNIB) titled ‘See the Person’.

The campaign sets out to challenge misconceptions and outdated attitudes that people have toward those going through sight loss and hopes in turn to change attitudes toward blind and partially sighted people.

“We need to explode the myths and misconceptions around sight loss which lie at the heart of many of the challenges blind and partially sighted people face – both every day and throughout their lives.” explained Martin Wingfield, Director of Brand at RNIB.

The emotional hero film of the campaign follows the story of Ava, a teenage girl coming to terms with losing her sight. The heartwrenching film shows the emotional side effects of sight loss and follows the five stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

Audiences are shown the way that sight loss impacts various parts of Ava’s life at home and at school. While the film focuses on the huge emotional and mental impact that losing sight can have on a person's life, as Ava reaches acceptance audiences see a variety of RNIB products and services that can be used to make life easier. The film ends on a hopeful tone, showing that with the right support people can adjust and gain confidence again. 

The film was directed by BAFTA-nominated Jesse Lewis-Reece at You Are Here and the actor who plays Ava, Eli London, was able to draw upon their own personal experiences of sight loss, having had retinoblastoma in childhood, resulting in monocular vision. 

The film is also fully accessible to a visually impaired audience with RNIB and The&Partnership, making use of a variety of techniques to craft the audio storytelling. These methods included creating the voiceover to sufficiently tell Ava’s emotional journey and creating a multi-layered soundscape that all audiences could fully immerse themselves in. 

“We have pulled out every stop to make this campaign both deeply empathetic to convey the experience of sight loss to a sighted audience, and at the same time thoroughly accessible to the blind and partially sighted community. It’s a unique balancing act but Jesse and his team rose to the challenge,” added Toby Allen, Executive Creative Director at The &Partnership.