AdRants, a top web site covering the advertising industry, picked up our recent post on how Phonak is using some over-the-top advertising imagery in an attempt to make the new Phonak Audeo hearing aids more cool. The AdRants story is worth reading because it points out that the evolution in perceptions of hearing-impaired people is on the same positive track we’ve seen with other conditions — as when things once labeled “disabilities” are now labeled “challenges.” It shares my question whether hearing-aid manufacturers need to bend over backward to eliminate the hearing-aid stigma by trying to make their products impossibly cool: “Some things don’t need the Dolce and Gabbana treatment.” But it quite rightly points out that ads featuring buff dudes are often what it takes to get the attention of an aging generation of Baby Boomers desperately trying to hang onto their youth.