The Siren Awards are held annually by Commercial Radio Australia. The Siren Awards are national, annual advertising awards, designed to encourage excellence and creativity in commercial radio advertising. The awards program started in 2005 and aims to promote and reward the radio commercials which stand out from the crowd. When faced with a radio brief a creative has the opportunity to make an ad which both cuts through and attracts notice, as well as using creativity to engage the listener and draw them in.

See full award overview here - http://www.sirenawards.com.au/

The 2018 Siren Awards Best Radio Ad is as follows:

• The Monkeys
• Clemenger BBDO
• Marketforce
• J Walter Thompson
• Ogilvy
• BMF
• McCann
• YR
• Fenton Stephens
• The Brand Agency

These impressive agencies will be competing for the Gold Siren, which is set to be awarded next month at Sydney's Arthouse Hotel on May 10.

The winner will receive a Delegate pass for one person to the International Cannes Advertising Festival, return airfares/accommodation for one person to Cannes, France and of course the Gold Suren Trophy. 

The Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal encompasses the collection of personally identifiable information of up to 87 million Facebook users  which, Cambridge Analytica began collecting in 2014.

This data was said to be used to influence voter opinion on behalf of politicians who hire them. Following the discovery, Facebook apologised amid public outcry and raised stock prices. The way that Cambridge Analytica collected the data was deemed "inappropriate"

There is a lot of crossover between the Google Analytica scandal and the advertising industry we know today as outlined by Matt Oczkowski, Head of Product at Cambridge Analytica.

Whether you want to vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, or whether you want to buy cereal or Coca-Cola, understanding the behavioural motivations behind individuals is key. Presidential campaigns are well-funded, but a lot of the lessons are universal. The great thing about [election] campaigns is that they force innovation, he said.

I want to work with publishers to adapt new models that get them away from problematic advertising units. The long-term vision is using the quality and value of data [to build] a better user experience because the consumer market has moved to a place where people are sick of annoying advertising, he told AdNews.

Some high-profile companies have suspended ties with the social network amid the controversy, they are as follows:

·       Mozilla

·       Sonos

·       Pep Boys

·       SpaceX and Tesla

·       Playboy

·       Commerzbank

Watch Mark Zuckerberg testifying against U.S congress in full here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZaec_mlq9M

The Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games (GC2018) is the largest sporting event Australia will see this decade and the biggest sporting spectacular the Gold Coast has ever seen.

With years of planning and over 15,000 volunteers – the Commonwealth games launched last Wednesday at Carrara stadium, with a strong and beautiful focus on its First Nation people. 

Much to the dismay of the notorious idiot, Pauline Hanson, who slammed the indigenous component of the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony as “absolutely disgusting” and labelled herself an indigenous Australian.

The One Nation leader and Queensland senator said that the indigenous segment of the ceremony dominated and was “over the top”.

Yugambeh spokesman Rory O’Connor said he believed the ceremony organisers got the balance right. “Out of 4500 people on stage that night, less than 300 of them were indigenous,” Mr O’Connor said. “Of 150 minutes of performance, less than 20 minutes was ­indigenous.”

Mr O’Connor said the Yugambeh’s inclusion in the opening ceremony came about after five years of co-operative work with the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games Corporation (GOLDOC), which included working on a reconciliation action plan that led to millions of dollars in Games contracts for indigenous businesses.

Indigenous presence is important in all facets of life in Australia - and the GC2018 Commonwealth Games have made a progressive decision to make this a focus, hopefully this will continue to expand.

To learn more of the Gold Coats reconciliation plan visit: https://www.reconciliation.org.au/reconciliation-action-plans/