Audio Ad You Can See

To ensure the best possible candidates were informed of the job opening and intrigued by the potential of the position, we had to find a unique way to reach a very small audience.

We learned that less than 1% of the Australian population is suitable to work in Navy intelligence. This small target audience are very technically minded and are inherent problem solvers. So, instead of simply serving up another ad on social media, we were going to hide the ad in the electromagnetic spectrum and then use social media to challenge them to find it.

VML and Defence Force Recruiting collaborated with Squeak E Clean Studios to create ‘The Audio Ad You Can See’. It’s a secret image hidden in the frequency content of an audio ad, designed to connect our target tech audience to discover the unique Navy intelligence roles.

To reveal the secret image, the audio must be processed in a spectrogram. It’s software that analyses frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum and is used by tech, science and engineering industries. It’s also used by the Australian Navy to intercept, analyse and identify threats at sea.

Creating the hidden image was a unique collaboration between audio production and design. While the audio needed to be crafted for an image, the image needed to be crafted for audio. So, how did we make it work?

First, a designer created a poster. It was then converted into audio signals using an image synthesizer, before the voice and further soundscape elements were added. For the first time, an audio engineer also became the art director. Instead of crafting an image with Photoshop, they used Pro Tools. Every element was tweaked with meticulous precision to manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum.