Victorian Hearing apologises for ‘Hearing aids can be ugly’ campaign following online backlash
Victorian Hearing has apologised for an ad which described hearing aids as “ugly” along with an image in which the hearing device was replaced with a prawn, after being accused of deaf shaming.
The campaign, which was taken offline over the weekend, aimed to address the issue of 20 per cent of Australians refusing to seek help for failing hearing because they are embarrassed, the company said in the apology on its Facebook page.
“Victorian Hearing sincerely apologizes if our current invisible hearing solution add was hurtful, it was certainly not our intention. However, we are fighting a war with a large population of Australians (1 in 5) who refuse to seek hearing amplification because they are embarrassed.”
People took to the page’s Facebook page to express their anger at ad, with one poster saying: “I don’t really love my hearing aids, but I accept that with the severity of my hearing loss, I’m stuck with them. To see them referred to as ugly though — that’s just really unhelpful.”
Not really an apology and they are obviously still oblivious as to how hurtful their advertisement was by trying to justifying it.
Cannot comprehend how anyone thought this was ok.
What a tone-deaf campaign.
I don’t agree, the idea is to promote hearing aid options, and if it takes a shock tactic then than is perfectly legitimate to do that. As for deaf being ‘shamed’ rubbish, deaf people DON’T use hearing aids !
“Deaf people DON’T use hearing aids!”
Mervyn, what kind of nonsensical crap are you spewing?
Mervyn James, I cannot even begin to comprehend where to start with how stupid your comment is.
Deaf people DO use hearing aids. End of story.
May I suggest you contact your state deaf association and ask some questions? Deafness does not mean that once diagnosed, you have zero hearing and your ears are simply ornaments…!
You can be profoundly deaf and have hearing aids work for you. It’s like myopic people are classified as blind yet can see with glasses.
Educate yourself please.
What about the poor prawn? He did nothing wrong.
I suffer from moderate hearing loss and have been wearing lyric hearing aids for the last few months. I am a part of the lucky 70-80% of people who suffer from hearing loss that are a match for lyric aids. Some people aren’t because of the size of their ears of the type of hearing loss that they suffer from. So great job in making those who seek treatment and don’t fit lyric feel like crap about having to resort to ugly, prawn aids.
It is worth mentioning, these babies are at the very top end of the price chart. Some people have to eat prawns when they can’t afford lobster.
There is seemingly no end to the dizzy whirl of political correctness, and the number of people seemingly waiting in the wings, to jump out and claim personal offense.
The ad does not say, and did not say, that hearing aids are ugly, neither did it label those who wear them as ugly or even in danger of being accused of being ugly.
It did state, that hearing aids [quote] “can be ugly” [unquote] Which, if anyone cares to be honest and think about that statement, they will surely find it absolutely accurate.
Hearing aids have been getting gradually smaller, slimmer and much less obvious for decades, the reason being clear, that many people felt self conscious wearing a large phone in their ear or ears with double wires coiling away into their collars and terminating in a bulge in their pockets.
This ad, which I feel is not only accurate, but also the barer of good news, avoids identifying any one type of hearing aid, by using a prawn to make it’s message clear.
It is reasonable to assume that a person faced with the decision for the first time, might conceivably say, ”yes, just as long as I don’t have to wear a prawn behind my ear.”
Even worse, it’s just a really poorly written ad.
Couldn’t agree more curmudgeon!
Prawn? What are you saying? “Good Body Bad Head”?
Large population? How large is this population that you are targeting? Why not provide statistics of the number of these Australians who would opt out of wearing a hearing aid? hearing aid is a medical device and not a fashion piece. Bad taste.
@fred
Like spectacles do you mean fred? Perhaps all spectacles should look like the old national health wire frame round lens specs of the 1930s, complete with fake tortoise shell celluloid ear rests. they are after all, only a medical devise.
Oh, and the “Large Population,” is described right after the claim as 1 in 5 Australians requiring hearing aids.
The ad was in poor taste and insensitive, sure… however… is 3 Facebook wall comments, with a maximum of 8 Likes really an outrage? That’s interesting…
Tea, may I suggest you look up the hashtag
#hearingaidsarethenewblack
To the person that wrote Deaf people don’t use hearing aids! 2 of my 5 children are Deaf and they use hearing aids. We glam them up and make them proud of who they are. They could have thought “outside the box” with out being disrespectful to those that where aids…. Yes my 10 yr old is self contious all ready…. I showed her the add and she wanted to know “why people would want aids that looked like that, silly people. Of coarse they are ugly when they look like that! “
Of course they’re bloody ugly, that’s why we’ve spent trillions of dollars to develop smaller and nearly invisible designs. If they spent less time being #triggered like looney leftists and more time donating THEIR money to the R&D rather than those of us who fund hearing tech then their kids would never have to have those god awful old ear slugs.
Think of early medical devices, back braces, early orthodontics, etc. They look like horrific torture devices. To think that saying they look like torture devices is somehow a crime against humanity is delusional. People seek offense anywhere they can find it; they need to harden up and stop being lecherous and start contributing to the cause by putting their money where their highly triggered mouth is.
They just wasted tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars on them having to hire a PR firm to deal with the backlash that could have been spent curing kids deafness for good. They’re horrible people.