CRA declares audio ‘outperforms at every stage’ at HEARD 2026

Commercial Radio & Audio has used its annual HEARD showcase to sharpen its pitch to marketers, arguing audio is gaining ground as Australians “pull back from screens”, alongside fresh analysis of campaign performance data.

Speaking at ICC Sydney, CRA CEO Lizzie Young positioned audio as a channel delivering consistent impact across the purchase funnel, arguing there is a “cultural shift” underway in how audiences want to engage day-to-day.

“It’s crystal clear from the choices that Australian consumers are making that we are delivering what they want. They’re pulling back from screens and leaning into audio,” Young said.

Young pointed to Deloitte data showing digital entertainment consumption is shifting, with audio up 33% year-on-year and now commanding 28% of total digital entertainment consumption. Audio, she said, is now the only medium with significant growth.

Young also reinforced CRA’s scale argument, saying commercial radio reaches 12.4 million Australians weekly in metro markets - higher than commercial television or BVOD - and that reach has remained stable for more than four years.

“That combination of resilience and scale simply cannot be found in other media channels,” Young said.

The industry body’s presentation centred on new modelling drawn from the Advertising Council of Australia’s Effectiveness Database, analysed by independent consultant Rob Brittain and MiniMBA founder Mark Ritson.

According to the findings, campaigns with excess share of voice that included audio investment delivered significantly stronger outcomes than those without. Among high-performing campaigns, audio accounted for an average 11% of total media spend.

Ritson’s central message to marketers was blunt: growth requires investment, and the best-proven lever is excess share of voice (ESOV) - the gap between a brand’s share of voice and its current market share.

“If you want growth, you have to invest for growth,” Ritson said, outlining how ESOV can be used to calculate the level of share of voice - and budget uplift - needed to deliver planned market share gains over time.

Ritson said the updated Australian analysis showed campaigns running ESOV and investing in audio delivered stronger business effects than ESOV campaigns without audio, arguing audio creates a “catalytic effect” that makes the broader media mix work harder.

“Allocate 11% to audio and you trigger a disproportionate effect across every key brand and business measure,” he said.

Ritson also laid out creative and planning conditions he said lift effectiveness further, including longer campaign durations and more consistent use of distinctive brand assets - particularly sonic branding.

Among the guidance he presented: run campaigns well beyond short bursts, target longer flights of more than 27 weeks, and ideally build multi-year campaign cycles. He also argued “seven” is the threshold for the frequency of distinctive brand assets within an ad set to lift “fluency” - ensuring audiences quickly recognise who the advertising is for - and said sonic devices and jingles are among the most powerful tools for driving that recognition.

GYG global CMO Lara Thom provided a practical case study during a fireside chat with Young, describing audio as a core growth lever for the brand from its early days when budgets were tight.

“We were choosing one channel - radio was it,” Thom said, describing radio as cost-effective and a format where the brand could lean into a distinctive asset: founder Steven Marks’ voice and sign-off lines such as “hey guys” and “love ya”.

Thom said those repeated audio cues became brand assets that travelled across channels and helped drive mental availability. She also described audio as measurable in near real time for a retail business with digital ordering.

“When you work in retail, you live and die by the data,” Thom said, adding the brand can see local impacts quickly across the app and individual restaurant trade areas.

Thom said regional audio plays a key role in new store openings and local demand, arguing radio is “the hub of the community” outside metro markets and pointing to the need for marketing investment to support franchisees beyond the major cities.

CRA also used HEARD to outline progress on its industry innovation roadmap aimed at reducing friction for media buyers. A key element is CRA Audio ID, the sector’s unified digital audio identifier, which provides access to 14.7 million monthly listeners across major member networks and is now ready for clients to activate following its launch via Google Display & Video 360 in November.

Next phases include demographic and location targeting via Australian consumer intelligence provider HYP, while CRA flagged longer-term plans to explore high-value audience segments, interoperability and a unified audio exchange spanning commercial streaming and podcast inventory.