New Zealand broadcasters may reject advertising key numbers that do not comply with the agreed industry standard. This standard exists to ensure key numbers are compatible with broadcasters’ playout and logging systems.

Key numbers should:

• Contain no more than 12 alphanumeric characters

  (Underscores, spaces, slashes, and hyphens are ignored)

• Follow the advertiser–duration–unique reference format

  (e.g. ABC 030 001 or ABC 015 002).

This format ensures that the advertiser and duration are easily identifiable, and that no two commercials from the same advertiser share the same final four digits.

The “R” suffix (e.g. ABC0300001R) should only be used to indicate a technical amendment. Any change to the actual content of a commercial requires a new unique reference number.