Rare takes out Siren Awards Round 2 for Department of Education radio ad
Rare has won Round 2 of the 2023 Siren Awards with the campaign, ‘Reading Can Take You Anywhere’, for the Department of Education’s Premier’s Reading Challenge.
The radio ad from creatives Jess Marshall (pictured left) and Simon Mullins (pictured right), uses the element of surprise by taking the listener from a blockbuster movie style soundscape to the sound of a child reading from a book to promote the reading challenge.
The Sirens Council selected “Reading Can Take You Anywhere’, as the best single and campaign ads and overall winner of the round. Studio engineer Brad Habib from Soundbyte also won the craft category for the 30 second ad. Other versions of the ad, ‘Murder Mystery’ and ‘Alien’ also received a highly commended in the single ad and craft categories.
“To have this rich, immersive soundscape fade away leaving only a child’s voice in its wake creates an emotional and compelling conclusion that perfectly captures the magic of reading.” Marshall and Mullins said. “Just like imagination, audio isn’t constrained by pixels or dimensions. This made radio the perfect medium, as it allowed us to turn simple words on a page into an immersive story.”
The ad is now in the running for the 2023 Gold Siren Award for best radio ad, with the major prize a trip for the winners and their client to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
Congratulating Rare CRA chief executive officer Ford Ennals said: “Audio attention is an increasingly important metric for advertisers and one that CRA is about to conduct further research into.”
“The creative in Rare’s winning ad is an outstanding example of how to grab the listeners’ attention by introducing an unexpected element into a radio ad.”
AT Creative’s Andrew Tinning together with Tim Rodgers received a highly commended for radio ad ‘Wines Beers and Independent Spirit – Footy’, for their client Liquor Barons in the single and campaign categories.
The Studio at SCA creatives Paul Corbett and Chris Gates were highly commended in the campaign and craft categories for radio ad ‘Sliding Doors’ for their client 7-Eleven.
The Siren Awards are run by CRA to recognise outstanding radio advertising and are judged by industry experts across five rounds throughout the year plus a final call round.
Winning entries from each round are entered into the 2023 Gold Siren Awards, with the winner to be announced in May 2023. Listen to the Round 2 winning ads.
12 Comments
Really nice radio!
Lovely spots!
Yeah the kids!
Great work from great people.
Fantastic creative from Jess and Simon, perfectly executed by Brad. Such a fun campaign!
That’s great.
Radio is always a great medium for creativity and good radio ads are part of the pleasure of listening to radio.
We need more of it.
About two years ago, I began a conversation with Josh As captain of the PADC around the idea of a radio workshop for WA. We both agreed that the bulk of radio commercials were, and had been for some time, absolute rubbish. But along came Covid and the idea was shut down. However, we need not have worried because this work demonstrates all is not lost. My little heart is greatly warmed by this ‘Reading can take you anywhere’ campaign. A simple, elegant and original idea well executed by Brad. Well done to The Rare team. Great for Perth. Even better for radio.
Well done legends!
Awesome work guys!
Great work Jess, Simon and the rest of the Rare team. So simple, so good : )
Great job Jess & Simon. As usual, WA is punching above its weight in radio. Love to see it. By the way, the bulk of radio ads being rubbish has nothing to do with the level of creativity in the ad industry John. Clients’ budgets have shrunk and most of them don’t even have an agency. So, the overwhelming majority of radio ads are written by the stations. Perth advertising creatives are, and have always been, incredible radio writers, they just don’t get much of a look-in these days.
That’s awesome team! A beautiful thing to hear 🙂
You don’t need big budgets to write great radio. That’s just an excuse used by lazy creatives.