There has been a growing movement in Australia to have music by local acts used in national ads. It is not quite the radio quota that countries like Canada, France and New Zealand use to foster new domestic acts, but there is a growing awareness of the need to support local talent. 

Sydney-based music supervision company Music Mill, for example, told The Music Network in September that it would commit to push three Australian tracks a month to ad professionals – one from an established act, one from an emerging act and one deeper catalogue track that has been overlooked. 

There have been some significant local wins here, such as ‘Lights Up’ by Flight Facilities (featuring Channel Tres) being used in an Apple ad and a re-recorded version of ‘Fly Away’ by Tones & I appearing in an ad for Qantas, the Australian national airline. 

Perhaps the most interesting recent example, however, is TikTok’s use of ‘Hello’ by Voli K across a range of ads as part of a major multi-platform marketing push by the video-sharing app in Australia from August onwards.

Voli K is an albino and his family had moved from Fiji to Australia when he was four in the hope that he would not be judged so harshly for his condition, but sadly he ended up being bullied for how he looked. He first became famous as a contestant in the 2019 series of The Voice in Australia. “The importance of being on the show for me was to showcase my gift with music, but also to introduce myself to the world as an albino Fijian,” he said of his reason for competing. 

TikTok suggested it was drawn to his music as much as his personality and self-effacing sense of humour, leaning on this to project a sense of the “weird and wonderful” content that is created via the app every day. 

“At the heart of this new brand campaign is the idea that no matter what makes you ‘tick’, there is an amazing breadth of ‘thumbstopping’ content ready for you to enjoy on TikTok right now,” said Serena Leith, TikTok’s marketing director for Australia and New Zealand. “To bring this to life we harnessed the power of our unique local creators and some of the most compelling and unexpected videos you can find on TikTok, to produce a campaign that is culturally and contextually relevant, brings joy and busts the myths around what to expect from TikTok.”

There is clearly some distance to go for domestic acts to get greater support here, but the impact of ads and campaigns such as these will make the case stronger to think local and sync local.