RNID Wins Top Award For UK’s ‘Most Successful Ever’ Health Campaign Launch.

Goodwork's Breaking the Sound Barrier campaign for RNID took both the 'Best Integrated Campaign' and 'The Grand Prize' (award for overall excellence) at Haymarket's prestigious Third Sector Excellence Awards at Grosvenor House Hotel this week.

Speaking at Monday night’s awards, Goodwork’s founder Patrick Padget said: “We’re over the moon. RNID really deserved to get this. It’s been a true partnership effort.”

The target was to motivate a million people to take a telephone hearing test.

“It’s estimated that four million people across the UK are losing their hearing,” said Susan Osborne of RNID. “The worrying thing is that many of them don’t realise or find it hard to accept. We had to come up with something to get over the stigma. We commissioned a special piece of ‘hearing check’ music, Fanfare for the Hard of Hearing. The challenge was how to get people to listen to it. And that was where the creative wizards at Goodwork came in.”

RNID were up against some stiff competition, including such heavyweights as Comic Relief. But the judges were decided that for pure innovation RNID had the edge.

“The great thing was approaching the question from so many different angles,” said Third Sector judge Susan Seager. “It really is a completely integrated campaign.” Fellow judge Indira Das-Gupta added: “The test was such a clever idea – you could take it discretely and on your own.”. Third Sector editor Stephen Cook agreed. “There was some hard debating,” he said, “but in the end, the sheer depth and professionalism of the RNID won the day for overall excellence.”

Goodwork’s long-term strategy combines advertising, PR, events, partnerships and parliamentary lobbying, supported by a dedicated online ‘microsite’. The campaign was launched in the national and regional press just before Christmas and supported by TV advertising over the holiday period. “A real coup was persuading the BBC to broadcast Fanfare for the Hard of Hearing on Radio 4’s Today programme,” said Patrick Padget. “After that the phones didn’t stop ringing.”

Breaking the Sound Barrier’s initial launch attracted more than 385 million viewing opportunities. The helpline receives up to 800 calls every day. So far 270,000 people have taken the ‘hearing check’, and the campaign is on track to meet its ambitious target of a million in two years, making it the most successful health campaign launch in UK history.