As Thursday August 6 dawns across the five capitals of this great continent for the official launch of DAB+ digital broadcasting in Australia, all ears will be on the radio but the eyes will be on the sky as the big Gorilla marketing push swings into action.

On Thursday all the radio stations, commercial and ABC will get together for a giant OB in their respective cities. But in Sydney’s Martin Place, the real interest could come from an unlikely quarter, 2SM – more precisely its new digital offshoot, Gorilla.

Not known for the size of his marketing budget, The Supernetwork’s colourful owner Bill Caralis has gone all out this time by employing the services of a sky writer and a guy in a gorilla suit handing out bananas to add a little sparkle to the occasion.

Fun as that may be, Gorilla’s substantive claim to being a serious contender on the digital platform is that it promises a number of live shifts with seasoned talent such as Rob Duckworth and also a likely starter, 2SM breakfast announcer Grant Goldman’s son Mike Goldman.

The new digital station is being put together by former 2SM Operations Manager, James Yelland.

The Gorilla site asks ‘What type of music are we gonna play,’ and offers listeners a chance to “listen to our iPod while the techs set up our stuff.” Currently there is a loop of jungle sounds on the stream.

Putting a new angle on the old ‘monkey picks our music’ promotion used a while ago by Triple M, the website says the station’s gorilla is “picking the tunes as we speak.”