Mencap: Here I am by The Corner

Mencap, the UK’s leading learning disability charity, today launches its biggest campaign to date, created by London advertising agency The Corner. Debuting as a human rights rallying cry, “Here I Am” aims to educate and promote the closer integration of people with a learning disability within modern social culture.

The creative celebrates this in a TV and cinema commercial shot by acclaimed Director Ed Morris of Rattling Stick, and a photo shoot led by famous photographer Rankin, which will be used for OOH. Designer Anthony Burrill, known for his persuasive, up-beat style of communication, created the “Here I Am” design which will act as the key visual for the entire movement.

The TVC takes a quote from Atlantic Magazine in 1968, where a leading academic suggests that someone with Down’s Syndrome is not in fact a person, and that there should be no guilt “putting them away” in a sanitarium or even lethal sense.

This quote is then cut up by DJ Casey Rochell, a young man with Down’s Syndrome, who turns these shocking words into something positive and upbeat.

“A Down’s is not person” becomes “A Down’s is a person”.