Musical campaign for turkey meat wins Round 5 of Siren Awards

A radio campaign promoting turkey meat has won round 5 of Commercial Radio Australia’s (CRA) Siren Awards.

The campaign for Steggles’ turkey, titled ‘Ugly, but good for you’, was created by creative agency M&C Saatchi.

The ‘German Jog Techno’ iteration of the campaign was voted overall winner and best single ad, while four others in the series were awarded best campaign.

In addition, BMF’s campaign for Tourism Tasmania, ‘Come down for air – Wakalina’ by Jack Robertson and Rob Boddington won highly commended in the single category. In the craft category, Tone Aston from Rumble sound studio was also highly commended for the Tassie campaign.

Judges also selected four other campaigns for highly commended recognition – ‘Eardrum’ for ING Bank (Australia) by Ralph van Djik from Eardrum; ‘Go Full Christmas’ for SleepCheck by Patrick Anderson from Isobar Australia; ‘At Home’ for Brightwater by Alida Henson from Rare; and ‘Tradies Swear By It’ for Fergus, by Will Reynolds and Nick McHugh from Winsdorborn.

Joan Warner, CEO of CRA, said: “The entries into the Siren Awards have been outstanding this year and continue to showcase radio as an effective advertising medium.”

The winning creative duo from M&C Saatchi, Melissa Hawkett and Jason Leigh, said the campaign is unique because they’re not ads – they’re songs.

“We made sure they were bangers that blended in with radio playlists, so they complimented what you were listening to. We loaded them with funny truths to leave people feeling good about Steggles Turkey and ‘sweaty creases,'” they said.

The pair said creating an emotional response was the most important factor when developing a radio ad.

“Whether you laugh or cry, there’s a reward for listening, it makes it worth their while.”

The ads were produced by sound engineer Hylton Mowday from We Love Jam Studios, who won the craft award for ‘German Jog Techno’ and was highly commended for ‘Hip Hop Spin Class’ and ‘Pop Power Pump’.

The Siren Awards are run by CRA to recognise outstanding radio advertising and are judged across five rounds throughout the year, plus a final call round. Final call round winners have also been selected and the entries that received the highest scores, along with winners from all previous 2021 rounds, will now enter a final judging stage with hopes of becoming one of the finalists who will compete to win the Gold and Silver Sirens.

The Gold Siren winner will be announced at the Siren Awards event in Sydney on Thursday, June 3.