The charity plans to invest for the first time in TV advertising, having concentrated on direct marketing and radio in the past. It is drawing up a longlist of eight agencies and plans to trim this down to four for the final pitch.
The brief for the campaign will be to promote hearing aids and raise awareness of them among the general public, in a bid to make wearing the devices more socially acceptable.
There will also be a brief to highlight the damaging effect that exposure to loud music at concerts and nightclubs can have on hearing in later life.
In 2004, the company appointed Watson Phillip Norman to handle its direct marketing following a six-way pitch. The outgoing agency was Whitewater.
Watson Phillip Norman was briefed to roll out an integrated campaign aimed at increasing the number of long-term donors to the RNID and moving away from a reliance on one-off cash gifts. The campaign marked the first time the charity had advertised on the radio.
Before Whitewater won the account in 2001, the charity's direct marketing was handled by an in-house team.
The RNID is the country's largest charity for the deaf and represents the UK's nine million deaf and hard-of-hearing people. The RNID was unavailable to comment at the time of going to press.
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