Guide
Audio advertising in Australia: a practical guide
Audio advertising is the only medium that can reach someone in the car, in the shower and on hold with their bank. This guide explains how a radio commercial, jingle or on-hold message actually gets made in Australia - the formats, the process, and what separates a commercial that works from one that gets talked over.
The formats you can buy
Almost every audio asset a brand needs falls into one of five buckets. Knowing which one you are briefing saves time and money before a single word is written.
- Radio commercials. 15, 30 and 60 second spots, written for the ear and mixed to broadcast specification. The 30 second is the workhorse of Australian radio.
- Jingles. A sung or musical brand device, composed from scratch. A good jingle is an earworm with a commercial reason behind it - not a stock bed with your name dropped over the top.
- Voiceovers. Male and female artists, Australian and international accents, cast to suit the market and the mood.
- Streaming audio. Spotify, iHeart and podcast ads, which need tighter writing and a different mix to radio.
- On-hold and in-store audio. Scripted messages that keep callers informed and customers in the room.
How a radio commercial gets made
The process is the same whether you are buying one station in a regional market or a national network run. Only the scale of the versioning changes.
- Brief. Who is listening, what do you want them to do, and what can you not say. Advertising claims in Australia are regulated, so the brief has to be accurate before anything is recorded.
- Script. One idea, one voice, one call to action. Copy written to be heard once, not read twice - which is why scripts written for print almost never work on air.
- Cast. The right read for the audience. A Cairns audience is not a Sydney audience, and a warm conversational voice is not a hard sell.
- Record and mix. Voice, music and sound design balanced so the message survives a car radio at road speed.
- Deliver. Masters in the format the station or network asks for, plus cut-downs and alternate reads for testing.
National, metro and regional buys
Australian radio is not one market. A national campaign runs across several network groups and needs versioning so it does not sound like it was made for nowhere. Metro buys in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide are the most expensive airtime in the country, and the creative has to compete with the best produced work in the market. Regional buys are where budgets typically work hardest, but they punish generic creative hardest too - a metro ad dropped into a country market sounds like it.
The practical answer is one creative idea with market-specific versions, rather than one master sprayed everywhere. See the markets we produce for.
What we need to quote
To price a job properly we need four things: the length of the spot, the market it is airing in, whether you need a script written or you are supplying one, and whether a jingle or music bed is involved. Send those four and you will get a straight answer rather than a range.
Common questions
Can I use AI voices instead?
You can, and Australian audiences notice within seconds. We use real, experienced human voice artists on every job - the performance is the product.
Should I voice my own commercial?
Usually no. If your spot runs next to professionally voiced work, the difference is obvious to the listener even when they cannot name it.
Do you work with agencies?
Constantly. The work goes out white labelled under your name, and we never contact your client.