With the stage already set for educating the public about important ways to achieve and maintain healthy hearing, the National Campaign for Hearing Health is looking for an
advertising agency to help launch a research-driven branding campaign. Last March, the Deafness Research Foundation (DRF) launched the initial phase of the five-year campaign
promoting the need for universal newborn hearing screening to detect hearing loss in infants. Profound deafness or hearing loss affects one out of 300 babies born annually in the
U.S.
Being heard, however, has been an uphill battle for this campaign with a limited six-figure marketing budget and a strong legislative bent. The overall aim of the campaign is
to create noise about the latest developments in detection, prevention, intervention and research. For now, the marketing efforts have been handled in-house by Elizabeth Foster,
the campaign's director.
The campaign has advertised in New York's Stagebill theater publication, the Army Navy Times and a few medical conventions. The copy drives home the need for hearing detection
and features a ballerina and four children who received cochlear implants which enhances their quality of life. Ultimately the campaign aims to negotiate national placements for
its PSA in magazines like Readers Digest and Parents.
While DFR does not expect an advertising agency to take on the project as a pro bono effort, it is looking for a firm that can aggressively negotiate reduced advertising rates
with national media outlets. The ideal agency will be a mid-size East Coast firm with non-profit expertise and fundraising abilities. Participation in the campaign will benefit an
ad agency because of the attention the effort is already generating from political circles and Fortune 500 companies. Children-focused companies like Sony and Hasbro are
interested in campaign sponsorship because it represents a "hearing healthy seal of approval," says Foster.
(National Campaign for Hearing Health, Elizabeth Foster, 202/408-0808, http://www.hearinghealth.net)