Following Purple Tuesday (1 November), Oddity Events and Marketing has committed to a year of intensive learning about inclusivity.
Purple Tuesday is a global social movement that aims to improve the customer experience for individuals with disabilities and their families.
This year, Lizzy Eaton, managing director of Oddity Events and Marketing, was invited to attend the launch of Purple Tuesday 2022 at Piccadilly Circus.
What the pledge involves
Eaton has pledged to invest significant resources into inclusivity and accessibility training for her team.
With mentorship from Marc Myers, retail director for Central London and outlets at Landsec, Eaton’s plan is to commit an hour per week for her team to learn from people with lived experiences, through training, focus groups, research and volunteering.
With the journaling and documentation about the agency’s findings, Eaton will analyse, write and publish practical implementations into a guidebook (Oddity Events & Marketing Inclusive Event Design Playbook), with the aim of publication by Purple Tuesday 2023.
“The guidebook aims to be a point of reference for all event professionals to ensure they are planning their events with inclusion, considered and implemented across the board, from the concept development phase all the way through to execution on the day,” explained Eaton.
In doing so, her mission is for event professionals to collaborate and share their experiences and knowledge, improve the accessible experience at events, welcome new audiences and reinforce inclusivity policies for organisations.
Eaton added: “There are clear parallels between retail environment design and live event design, however, while the retail industry is actively implementing inclusive customer experiences for people with disabilities, the events industry is lagging behind – there is a lot of work to do to get inclusivity embedded in the event planning process.
“More than one in five potential UK consumers have a disability***, and 20% of the working age population is disabled****. Based on these statistics, B2B events alienate a significant proportion of their potential audience with buying power, when the experience is not inclusive.”
