Hugh Boyle and Bob Wagner have launched creative agency Doable and panel-based consumer research company Consumers with Disabilities Research Foundation (CoDi Research). The sister shops aim to improve disability representation in advertising and marketing by addressing:
- The under-representation of talent with disabilities working in advertising and marketing agencies.
- And the absence of consumers-with-disabilities research, data and insights and how this impacts the portrayal of life with a disability in advertising and marketing campaigns.
Boyle and Wagner are disabled advertising agency veterans. Boyle, who previously served in senior roles at WPP & Omnicom agencies, is a trans-tibial amputee. Wagner held senior roles at Omnicom agencies, began his career on the client side with Procter & Gamble and Campbell’s Soup, and has been hearing impaired since birth.
Together, the two bring a unique perspective to marketing for and with the disabled community. Boyle said, “Becoming disabled in my early 50’s was a dramatic & unexpected life change. But it gave me a new and very different worldview that I was immediately compelled to do something positive with. Overlaying the challenges of my new life as amputee on 30 years pre-disability agency experience really set the foundations for these two important companies”.
Wagner said, “For most of my career I have tried to conceal my hearing impairment – with somewhat limited success. I understand disabled consumers not wanting to stand out and the importance and value of meeting their needs on their own terms.”
Doable and CoDi launch with three key relationships in place:
- As a network agency of Worldwide Partners Inc.
- In co-operative partnership with The Research Institute for Disabled Consumers (RiDC).
- And with launch support & office-space from Dallas based Moroch Partners.
The companies launch at a time when one-in-five working aged adults in North America live with a disability and the same group as consumers hold disposable income of $480 billion.
Doable and CoDi Research are headquartered in Dallas, but work with talent with disabilities across the country.
