Loud wins and quiet consolidation: why both matter for authentic disability inclusion

July's Disability Pride Month felt different this year. Quieter. Perhaps it's the broader retreat from diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) commitments we're witnessing across the US, or the effect of disability benefit cuts in the UK. Whatever the cause, this silence is occurring at precisely the moment when authentic disability inclusion could reshape both workplace cultures and business outcomes in profound ways.

The 16% of the global population that is disabled isn't shrinking – it's growing more visible, more vocal and more discerning about which brands deserve their loyalty. Yet only 1% of advertising includes disability representation, and 98% of disabled people report that the media fails to reflect their reality.

The traditional approach to disability inclusion has been built on moral arguments wrapped in basic business metrics. At Valuable 500, we've relied on this framing ourselves at times – leading with statistics about revenue growth and profit margins to get the attention of CEOs. But this approach fundamentally misunderstands what disability brings to creative and strategic processes. When we talk about the $18 trillion in annual disability spending power, we're describing an outcome, not the driver.

The real value lies in adaptive intelligence – the problem-solving capabilities developed through navigating inaccessible systems daily. As disability advocate Keeley Cat-Wells observed during our recent Cannes Lions panel: “We are some of the most creative, innovative people you've ever met. We are actively always adapting because we are just living in a society that is so inaccessible.”

This adaptive intelligence shapes how products are conceived, how creative challenges are approached, how strategic decisions are made. Voice recognition technology, originally developed for disabled users, now powers entire industries. Curb cuts, designed for wheelchair accessibility, transformed urban mobility for everyone from parents with strollers to delivery drivers. Companies that understand this can access innovation capabilities that their competitors lack entirely.

Here's where the current moment gets particularly complex. While it might be said that disability representation is somewhat stagnant overall, there are examples of authentic disability representation that are breaking through with remarkable success. These examples are doing so by moving beyond mere visibility to fundamentally reshape how we see disability; not just in terms of how disabled communities are seeing themselves on screen, but also taking an active role in shaping how they show up in media and marketing.

Channel 4's Considering What? campaign didn't just win the Grand Prix at Cannes Lions by featuring disabled people. It won by completely reframing Paralympic sport as it truly is: elite competition where athletes face the universal opponents of gravity, friction and time.

Similarly, Currys' award-winning Sigh of Relief campaign succeeded precisely because it was, as one of their disabled co-creators noted, “inclusion by design rather than accessibility as an add-on”. Working with Open Inclusion, the campaign featured disabled customers experiencing genuine moments of relief when their accessibility needs were met in-store – from cordless vacuum cleaners that eliminate tripping hazards, to large clickable dials that improve usability. The humour emerged from authentic consumer truths rather than stereotypical portrayals.

Authentic representation works precisely because it moves beyond representation into insight. But it requires sustained commitment, not performative moments. The brands succeeding in this space have embedded disabled voices throughout their creative processes, not just in their final campaigns.

When Coca-Cola became the first global corporation to receive an official American Sign Language (ASL) name sign, it wasn't the result of a boardroom decision but an eight-month collaboration with Gallaudet University students who led every step of the process. Four students specializing in Communication Studies, Business Administration and Linguistics controlled the creative development, ran focus groups, and shaped the work to ensure cultural authenticity. The result – which reimagined Coke's iconic Hilltop commercial entirely through ASL – demonstrated what happens when deaf expertise leads rather than simply advises.

When budget pressures hit, diversity initiatives were often the first to be cut because they were viewed as add-ons rather than integral business functions. Disability inclusion, already the most overlooked aspect of diversity work, has been disproportionately affected.

This reveals a fundamental strategic error. Inclusion operates as an organizational capacity that determines how effectively businesses can innovate, communicate and compete. The companies that understand this are building systematic approaches that make authentic representation inevitable rather than accidental.

Our new Authentic Representation Tool (ART), launched during this year's Disability Pride Month, provides exactly this infrastructure. Rather than relying on individual champions or seasonal campaigns, ART evaluates how deeply inclusion is embedded in organizational systems across accessible experiences, accurate representation and authentic narratives.

While Disability Pride Month may have felt subdued this year, something more significant has been happening beneath the surface. A quiet revolution is reshaping how businesses think about their audiences, their products and their competitive positioning.

Brands like IKEA have launched their BÄSINGEN collection, creating accessibility products that blend seamlessly into contemporary home design rather than screaming "medical equipment". Zalando doubled their adaptive fashion assortment to over 600 styles, proving that disabled consumers shouldn't have to choose between style and function. Just this week, Primark unveiled the first high-street mannequin representing wheelchair users – not as a one-off gesture, but as part of rolling out their permanent adaptive clothing range across 20 stores.

These quieter developments, alongside the breakthrough campaigns winning industry recognition, represent something deeper than individual successes. Together, they signal companies moving beyond performative moments to embed authentic representation into how they operate. Whether through award-winning creative work or systematic product innovation, the most impactful progress is happening when disabled voices lead rather than simply advise.

As we move toward 2026, businesses face a defining choice. They can view the current retreat from DEI as permission to deprioritize inclusion, or they can recognize it as an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage while their competitors pull back.

The companies choosing the latter are positioning themselves to lead markets that their competitors are actively choosing to ignore. In a business environment where differentiation is increasingly difficult to achieve, authentic disability inclusion offers something rare: an opportunity to access innovation capabilities and market insights that cannot be replicated through traditional approaches.

The 15% gap between population representation and advertising inclusion represents more than missed revenue; it represents missed intelligence, missed creativity and missed strategic advantage. The question facing business leaders isn't whether they can afford to address authentic inclusion. It's whether they can afford to let their competitors access capabilities they've chosen to overlook.

What seemed like the quiet of this year's Disability Pride Month actually revealed something important: Meaningful change happens through multiple approaches. The bold campaigns winning awards and reshaping cultural narratives work alongside the systematic infrastructure changes that embed inclusion into business operations. Both the visible breakthroughs and the foundational work matter – they reinforce each other in creating lasting change. Those combined voices will define competitive advantage in the decade ahead.