Smith & Western Sonic Branding has been awarded a Silver Clio Music Award, the highest honour presented in the sonic branding category this year, for work on Australia’s Nation Brand (Austrade) created in partnership with Houston.
The Clio Music Awards, sonic branding’s most prestigious global recognition, judged by leading creatives from around the world, represent the highest standard of creative excellence in music and sound-led branding.
What makes this recognition particularly significant is the context. Smith & Western is an independent, Australian-owned studio, competing against and prevailing over some of the world’s largest global agencies and sonic branding companies. In a category dominated by multinational networks, this win underscores both the calibre of Australian creativity and the growing global influence of specialist sonic branding agencies.
At the heart of Smith & Western’s Clio-winning work for Australia’s Nation Brand was a deceptively simple question, What does Australia sound like? Given the task of introducing sound into the Nation Brand toolkit for the very first time, Smith & Western created a suite of sonic assets designed to express Australia’s identity through audio, alongside its established visual and motion system.
The studio worked with Houston to developed four immersive, studio-quality soundscapes that capture both the natural and cultural essence of the country. The work drew on environmental field recordings, sound design, and musical elements inspired by Australia’s landscapes and First Nations heritage, and was crafted to feel authentically Australian without cliché. Each soundscape reflects a different facet of the nation, from rainforest and bushland to billabong, desert night, and ocean and harbour, creating a versatile and timeless sonic system now used globally across campaigns, presentations, and events to help Australia tell its story to the world.
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This year’s Clio Music Award winners span the very top tier of global music and culture, including Bad Bunny, Jack White, Liam Gallagher, Phish, Tyler The Creator, OK Go, David Byrne and Kenshi Yonezu. To be recognised alongside such internationally respected artists and creators highlights the expanding role sound now plays across branding, culture, and national identity. The award also reflects the rapid growth and rising importance of sonic branding. As brands increasingly compete in audio-first environments such as streaming, social video, podcasts, retail, and experiential spaces, sound has become a critical strategic asset rather than a finishing touch. This Clio recognition signals how central sonic identity has become to modern brand-building on a global stage.
Smith & Western extends its sincere thanks to Austrade and creative partners Houston for entrusting the agency with the responsibility of shaping how Australia sounds to the world.
The Clio win follows another recent international success. Smith & Western was also awarded Gold at the Transform Awards for its sonic branding work with TPG.
