World Hearing Day

Hearing loss affects 360 million people globally, but it largely goes untreated, despite its scale and the medical and socio-economic consequences of inaction. For World Hearing Day, and in partnership with Med-El Medical Electronics, Porter Novelli was tasked was to go beyond “awareness” and encourage people to seek treatment if they experienced symptoms of hearing loss.

Porter Novelli’s creative approach involved six interwoven stories about the moment a couple first hears—or doesn’t hear—their unborn child’s heartbeat. The title of the film was Moment of Silence, a name that underscored the impact of hearing loss at such a fundamentally important moment in a parent’s life. Filmed in four days, with 12 actors representing 24 countries, Porter Novelli created a master video with accompanying supers that regional markets could adapt. The videos, in turn, were aligned to microsites, where visitors could take online hearing tests and learn how to take action against hearing loss.