The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) yesterday announced a new award category that recognises the best use of Australian music in the creative and advertising industry.

The new award won’t be ready for Australian music’s biggest night of celebration this Thursday, but will make its debut at the 2023 ceremony.

It coincides with the announcement of ‘Our Soundtrack Our Ads’, an initiative that calls on the creative and advertising industry to invest their music budgets into homegrown artists. Doing so will gain them eligibility for the award.

“With the support and influence of Australia’s advertising industry, we can continue to create opportunities for Australian music to be heard in all its forms, by all who create it,” says  ARIA CEO Annabelle Herd. 

“Australia already has many internationally acclaimed artists who have featured in successful campaigns across the world, it’s time to recognise that on our own shores and soundtrack Australian lives with Australian music.”

The origins of Our Soundtrack Our Ads

In the depths of COVID-19 in July 2021, when the music industry was suffering the blows of one postponed event after the other, Australian recording artist Jack River posted a viral call-to-arms for local media and businesses to get behind Aussie talent in their commercial materials. This post led ARIA to create Our Soundtrack Our Stories, an open invitation from the music community to the rest of Australia to discover, champion, share, and consume more local music. 

Our Soundtrack Our Ads is an extension of this initiative, in partnership with M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment.

“We have such amazing talent here in our backyard, so getting to hear new and upcoming voices across more commercials, social media campaigns and creative content is exciting for the next generation of artists, brands and music lovers alike,” ​​Jack River says of Our Soundtrack Our Ads.

Saynaree Oudomvilay of M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment says: “Our work can play a role in discovering and partnering with artists and music that become the backing tracks to iconic moments in Australia’s culture, and can be heard and recognised in almost every Aussie household.”

More updates on the initiative will be shared early next year.