Advertisers Are Hiring Models Who Have Disabilities in a Bid to Better Portray Their Diverse Clientele : Challenging Images

Flip through most store or mail order catalogues, glance at the models and one fact becomes crystal clear: fashion ads don’t always imitate life. Not everyone in the real world is perfectly proportioned, toned, and graced with a pretty face.

But lately, some retailers are redirecting their advertising methods to include models who are physically challenged individuals, to better reflect their customer base. The move mirrors a similar effort by Benetton stores in the ‘80s, to incorporate models of varying ethnic backgrounds.

Retailers treat challenged models just as they do the professionals, paying established modeling rates. The standard national rate is now $150 per hour. Stores also pick up travel expenses, and offer the children and adults they hire an opportunity to bask in a glamourous limelight not often available to them.

Kids R Us, the children’s store chain based in Paramus, N.J. is the latest to join the trend. The company included physically challenged models in a 12-page ad circular that appeared Nov. 17 in Sunday newspapers. This first effort by the company prompted 75 phone calls and 50 letters, according to vice-president Ernie Speranza.

The youngsters were found in the playrooms of several hospital pediatric wards that are financally underwritten by Kids R Us. In watching children play, a light bulb went on inside some executives’ heads.

“They think of themselves as average kids, so we decided we should too,” says Speranza, who works on advertising for the company’s toy and clothing division.

Target has been a pioneer among major retailers in hiring physically challenged models for their fashion print ads.

The Minneapolis-based retailer began including physically challenged models (some with Down’s syndrome, others in wheelchairs who stand with the aid of walkers) in its Sunday circulars about 18 months ago, and continues to include them every four to five weeks.

The circulars appear weekly in several national newspapers, including the Times.

As with other retailers, Target does not set their physically challenged models apart, or make any comment about them.

Store policy is hard-and-fast: special kids are photographed alongside other children “doing things kids do,” explains George Hite, vice president of consumer affairs.

The idea came about during a brainstorming session for advertising executives. The biggest hurdle, says Hite, was finding the models. The company contacted Courage Center, a nonprofit organization in Minneapolis, for help. Once the first ad ran, mail and phone calls from parents of children with disabilities poured in, providing the company with a wealth of available talent.

In producing the Target circulars, physically challenged children and adults from all parts of the country are flown into the company’s studio facilities, all expenses paid.

“The kids get so excited,” Hite explains. “We had one girl in here from Houston who had never been on an airplane, had never seen snow. She was so excited. She made us all feel as great about the experience as she did,” Hite recalls.

For all the excitement, Target ad execs are careful not to exploit the concept, Hite explains.

“We didn’t want to do it every week, like some sort of campaign. We want it to be very natural, so we try to be careful not to exploit these children for our own gain, because there is a danger it could appear that way, though it isn’t our intention,” he says.

In Nordstrom’s Christmas 1991 catalog, four disabled models appear. Three Seattle residents, Shannon Bloedel, Melisa Espinoza and Neil Johnson are featured along with Grant Swindle, an Idaho youth.

Hiring disabled individuals to model is one way the company is using to expand the demographic appeal of their ads, explains Connie Wysaske, Nordstrom’s corporate public relations spokesperson.

The Seattle-based retail chain began using physically challenged models as part of its effort to diversify the customer base through its ads. Their first effort appeared in the company’s 60th anniversary catalog last summer.

In their new, holiday book, there are also women with character-enhancing laugh lines and men with salt and pepper hair.

“We want to fully represent our customers,” explains Wysaske. “There are older people as well as others with disabilities who are perfect models,” she says.

Los Cerritos Center shopping mall first featured handicapped models last fall in a catalog where many stores in the mall advertise.

They used the same foremat again for their new Christmas book. Becky McCafferty, a Mission Viejo resident who works for the Dale McIntosh Center for the Disabled in Anaheim, and Bob Molinatti, a Huntington Beach based athlete and former winner of the Los Angeles Marathon’s Wheelchair Division, were included in the 48-page direct mail catalog.

Molinatti is also Los Cerritos Center’s spokesperson for its Easy Access Shopping Experience, a new program designed to specially assist disabled shoppers. Molinatti, who says he thoroughly enjoys modeling, has also appeared in catalogs for racing chair equipment manufacturers.

He says including the handicapped in mainstream advertising is a positive move for all concerned.

“It’s healthy. My opinion is that for a long time the public was not ready to recognize us as glamorous,” he says.

Not all handicapped models featured in ads are selected to represent their peers. Long haired hunk Mitch Longley appears in Ralph Lauren Polo ads, without special aid or equipment, proving that the handsome model was selected not because of who he represents but simply because he is attractive.

Despite the growing interest in handicapped models from the retail sector, Molinatti says he thinks he and others still have a long way to go.

“We haven’t quite made it to the C & R commercials yet,” he says.