Specsavers sells a hearing aid as the hottest intimacy device — Cannes PR Gold

Hearing loss is one of the UK's most stigmatised health issues: 18 million Brits struggle to hear properly, yet many wait up to ten years to seek support. Specsavers' communications team and agency Golin Ketchum London had already spent years chipping at that stigma — hearing-loss denial had dropped 50% in two years — but the hearing aid itself remained the biggest taboo of all.

Their weapon was Valentine's Day. Specsavers launched 'The Relationship Aid', hyped as the most powerful innovation in couples' connection: relationship influencers and Married at First Sight expert Paul C Brunson teased a mystery device, while a film, radio spot and print campaign promised 'AI technology that enhances the senses' and a product 'discreet and designed to be used anywhere'. The adult-retail tone was so convincing that the reveal — the device was a Specsavers Advance 65 hearing aid — worked as comedy and as argument: hearing, the campaign said, is central to romantic connection.

The results were reported by the agency as a 69% uplift in hearing-aid sales, a 41% reduction in stigma, a 17% rise in hearing-test bookings for couples, 17.4 million earned film views and more Google searches for hearing aids than vibrators in Valentine's week. It activated 1,136 Specsavers stores across the UK and Ireland and won the Cannes Lions 2026 PR Gold in the Healthcare category.

The campaign continued Specsavers' pattern of turning a hearing-health message into cultural entertainment — following the double-Grand-Prix 'Misheard Version' — and reframed the conversation around love rather than loss.