The Sound Skills website was developed in order to help the RAF to recruit Intelligence Analysts – those who intercept and analyse hostile communications. In particular, they wanted to find young people with a natural talent for intelligence, but who didn’t necessarily know it yet.

Agency WCRS worked with RAF Intelligence to develop this online test of auditory concentration. Using 3D sound, the site replicates five realistic soundscapes: a festival, a crowded bar, a busy street and a football match. Users are then tested on their natural listening skills, such as concentrating on one conversation in the crowded bar, listening to a phone call in one ear while being heavily distracted in the other, picking out lyrics from a track and identifying a name in foreign-language football commentary.

View all the winning work from The Annual 2018 here.

RAF: Sound Skills. Entrant: WCRS. Client: The Royal Air Force. Agency: WCRS. Creative Director: Ben Long. Creatives: Jason Keet, James Hodson. Agency Producer: Alex Honnor. Agency Designers: Darren O’Donoghe, Craig Townsend. Digital Project Director: Sam Child. Director of Technology: David Gordon. Creative Technologists: Gon Fernandez. Sound Design: Steve Lane at GCRS.