Dee Snider can still screech out a tune that harkens back to his Twisted Sister days—and shatters any nearby drinking glass. But his hearing hasn’t aged quite as well after all those years of heavy metal stardom.  

So when Snider finds himself at a noisy restaurant, he and his rock singer friend have to bust into a high decibel song-versation just to understand each other over the clatter, according to a campaign from global audio tech brand Sennheiser.

The German company turned to Snider to help it break ground in an adjacent category to its flagship headphones, microphones and streaming and monitoring systems. Its new product is called Conversation Clear Plus earbuds, which recently premiered at the Consumer Electronics Show. Targeted at the 45-to-70-year-old demo, the tech intends to raise the bar for speech-enhancing wearables.

“Singing for Supper,” the first ad for the earbuds, comes from New York-based independent agency Terri & Sandy and director Nalle Sjöblad. The creative leans into a scenario familiar not just to baby boomers but any consumer who has been overwhelmed by bad acoustics and loud voices in a confined space. 

Snider and his dinner date, an unidentified rock god character, try to chat over their entrees, but the attempt is futile. Comical miscommunication ensues. Then they switch from their normal speaking voices to stadium-level wails, making a spectacle of themselves.

The impromptu mini-concert ends—and the noise-canceling begins—when Snider’s assistant brings him the Sennheiser earbuds.

“While rock stars might still have the pipes to cut through all the clamor of a noisy restaurant, they’re just like us and will struggle to follow conversations in challenging environments,” Jeff Marois, associate creative director/writer, Terri & Sandy, said in a statement. “Dee and his counterpart were the perfect choices to highlight the frustration that can come from trying to carry on a normal conversation when speech intelligibility is compromised.”

Back to basics

The brand wanted to return to its roots, “those being pure sound, music and the artist’s world,” according to Anne-Claire Costes, global head of consumer marketing.

“Going back to this heritage, choosing a musician as ambassador was a natural thing for us, and Dee appeared as the perfect fit,” Costes told Adweek. “We also wanted to break the barriers in the hearing industry and bring a new, disruptive, funny piece of communication.”

The earbuds have been co-developed with Sonova, a company that specializes in hearing technology. They’re designed to “block distracting noises and improve the clarity of conversations for every level of background commotion,” per the brand.

The ad, in long- and short-form versions, will launch across Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, focusing initially on the U.S., France, Germany, China and Japan. Media is being handled by Amsterdam-based Ogilvy Social.Lab.