Submitted by Golin

The Relationship Aid

Influencer Marketing

Golin Ketchum reframed the hearing aid as an intimacy device for Specsavers around Valentine's Day, and the agency reports a 69% increase in hearing aid sales.

+69%increase in hearing aid sales
+69%reduction in hearing stigma
17.4Mearned views
15Morganic views before reveal

Case in 60 seconds

A majority of older Brits live with hearing loss while many cases go undetected, because the audience avoids hearing aids, deterred by a stigma that marks the device as a symbol of age and decline.

The campaign appears to turn on a contradiction the page describes, because the couples who reject hearing aids as a mark of decline spend heavily on intimacy products chasing the connection that untreated hearing loss removed.

The organizing thesis moved the hearing conversation from loss to love, casting the hearing aid as an adult intimacy device rather than a medical appliance, and the hearing test as a couples' date to book.

Romance influencers seeded mysterious clips of an unnamed couples' intimacy device across social, and on Valentine's Day, with 15 million organic views already building, Specsavers revealed the device was a hearing aid.

Golin Ketchum reports a 69% increase in hearing aid sales and a 41% reduction in hearing stigma, with 17.4 million earned views and coverage running from the Daily Mail to the BBC.

Strategy Breakdown

Couples in Britain aged 55 and over affected by undetected hearing loss, described on the page as an audience that actively avoids hearing aids because of the stigma attached to them.
Based on the available evidence, the tension sits between romance as something couples spend heavily to protect and hearing loss as the condition quietly eroding it, which the page presents as an irony the audience does not see.
Hearing aids carry a stigma the page names as an unsexy symbol of old age and decline, so the category challenge was desirability rather than awareness, because the audience already knew the product existed and refused to wear it.
Specsavers appears in the role of the brand giving couples a reason to book a hearing test together, which the page frames as the most important couples' date rather than a health obligation.
The behaviour the work targeted reads as avoidance rather than ignorance, because the page describes an audience redirecting its spending towards adult intimacy products while leaving detected and undetected hearing loss untreated.

Creative & Execution System

Partners

  • Golin Ketchum

Participation mechanic

  • The work asked couples to book a hearing test together, treating the appointment as a date rather than a medical errand, with 1,136 Specsavers stores across the UK and Ireland carrying the activation.

Results & Evidence

MetricValue
Increase in Hearing Aid SalesThe Relationship Aid delivered a 69% increase in hearing aid sales and a 41% reduction in hearing stigma.
Reduction in Hearing StigmaThe Relationship Aid delivered a 69% increase in hearing aid sales and a 41% reduction in hearing stigma.
Earned ViewsThe campaign reached 17.4 million earned views and activated 1,136 Specsavers stores across the UK and Ireland.
Organic Views Before RevealRomance influencers seeded mysterious clips of 'the most powerful couples' intimacy device' across social, and on Valentine's Day, with 15 million organic views already building, Specsavers revealed it was a hearing aid, repositioning hearing checks as the ultimate couples' date.
Specsavers Stores ActivatedThe campaign reached 17.4 million earned views and activated 1,136 Specsavers stores across the UK and Ireland.

Why Golin's strategy worked

  1. 1

    A stigmatised product can be re-categorised rather than re-explained, because moving the hearing aid into the intimacy category sidesteps the decline associations that health messaging keeps reinforcing every time it argues the point directly.

  2. 2

    Withholding the product identity gives a teaser its pull, because an audience that speculates about an unnamed device arrives at the reveal already invested rather than being asked to care about a category it avoids.

  3. 3

    Anchoring a health message to Valentine's Day gave the brand a reason to speak that reads as earned rather than opportunistic, which matters in a category the audience actively declines to discuss.

  4. 4

    Reframing a clinical appointment as a couples' activity turns a store estate into the campaign's conversion point, because the shop is where the reframed behaviour has to be completed rather than merely agreed with.

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