Erin and Riley Kovalcik proudly show off their Seattle Seahawks blue-and-green Oticon Sensei hearing instruments. Riley’s letter to her “inspiration” Seahawks fullback Derrick Coleman and his heartfelt response captured nationwide media attention.
Oticon Inc, Somerset, NJ, turned Super Bowl fever into an opportunity to capture national media attention for hearing health with a targeted campaign that capitalized on existing research, fun facts, and two amazing little girls from New Jersey.
Located just 40 miles from MetLife Stadium, Oticon recognized that Super Bowl XVLIII presented a big opportunity to share sound advice about sports and noise and the importance of hearing protection in noisy settings. The company timed the campaign to build on pre-game excitement and the considerable media attention generated by the letters between 9-year-old Riley Kovalcik, from a nearby NJ community, and Seattle Seahawks’ Derrick Coleman, the NFL’s first deaf offensive player.
Riley and her twin sister Erin proudly donned their Seattle Seahawks blue-and-green Oticon Sensei to show their support for Derrick in media interviews and pre-game events leading up to the Super Bowl and at the Big Game itself.
Annette Mazevski, AuD, PhD, measures sound levels with a regulation football helmet using Kemar, an acoustic research mannequin.
“Riley and Erin brought the campaign to life in a way we could never have expected,” said Oticon President Peer Lauritsen. “They created a wave of media attention that helped us to carry our hearing health and hearing awareness messages to more media outlets and more consumers than we could have ever anticipated.”
To create the Big Game campaign, Oticon audiologists reviewed existing research on sports and noise and even conducted a little good-humored testing of its own. During NFL playoffs, a group of Oticon audiologists headed out to popular sports bars in playoff cities to measure noise levels during peak plays. In Somerset, audiologists measured sound levels with a regulation football helmet using Kemar, an acoustic research mannequin.
“Super Bowl fever was running high here in Somerset in the weeks leading up to the campaign launch,” said Annette Mazevski, AuD, PhD, manager of technology assessment at Oticon who headed up Team Super Bowl. “Everyone from audiologists, graphic artists, and web designers to our regional managers and customer service staff contributed to the hearing health and sports-related information in our press materials and infographics.”
The campaign zeroed in on Big Game topics designed to capture media and consumer attention including details and facts on such topics as Stadium Noise, Noise on the Field, Speed of Sound: The Cold Facts, Raising the Bar on Noise and Sound Advice for Game Day.
Oticon plans to continue to build on the success of the Big Game campaign with new consumer-focused initiatives around events and occasions that capture national attention and create additional opportunities to score points for hearing health.
For more information about the Big Game campaign and to download campaign infographics, click here.
Source: Oticon
