“It’s also about inoculating against accusations that it’s Canberra-centric and foisted on Indigenous people and that Indigenous people aren’t supportive.”

Marketing strategist Toby Ralph,who worked on former prime minister John Howard’s election campaigns,said both sides’ ads were “reasonable opening shots”,but the Yes case would eventually need to tackle head-on why the Voice needed to be enshrined in the Constitution.

“What the ad avoids is the contentious stuff,and it’s these issues that have seen support for the Voice slide pretty dramatically since it was first announced ... I think people are moving from heart to head when they assess the detail,” Ralph said.

The Yes ad will also roll out online,on radio and on outdoor advertising spaces such as bus stops.

Yes Campaign Alliance director Dean Parkin said the aim of the ad was to simplify the conversation for a broad audience after months of intense political commentary around the Voice.

“We’ve got to remember that there’s a lot of people who haven’t really heard much about this,who are coming to it pretty fresh. There’s probably been a lot of confusion,” he said.

“This campaign,right from the Uluru Statement from the Heart,has always said that this is about both – it’s about recognition,but it’s about that recognition having to be meaningful. That’s why Indigenous people have said it’s got to be through the Voice. So it’s about combining the two.”

He said the ad would be the first of several from the Yes campaign rolled out between now and the referendum and would run in every jurisdiction,rather than seeking to saturate particular states. “We’re not at that stage of targeting,it’s a conversation for the whole nation.”

Price attacked the ad as “deceptive” due to its focus on recognition and not the Voice. But Price has herself faced accusations of misleading supporters through an email campaign sent on her behalf by No campaign vehicle Fair Australia. The email,signed off by Price,purports to have uncovered secret government documents that expose the “real agenda” behind the Voice referendum,including plans to change the flag and force Australians to pay reparations to Indigenous people.

AnAAP FactCheck concluded the email was “misleading and misrepresents the documents in question”,which were minutes from 13 consultation events held in 2016 and 2017 about constitutional recognition and reflected comments made by some attendees,not positions adopted by the government.

For months the political debate around the Voice has been mired in legal arguments about the proposed wording of the amendment to embed the body in the Constitution and the risk of High Court litigation,which has been a key focus of an ongoing joint parliamentary inquiry into the referendum that will hand down its findings next month.

Former High Court justices Robert French and Kenneth Hayne and Solicitor-General Stephen Donaghue are among a slew of legal expertswho have backed the amendment as legally sound,while Ian Callinan,also a former justice,has argued that concerns the Voice could delay and disrupt government and business activity “cannot be brushed aside”.

Every prime minister since Howard has supported the principle of constitutional recognition,while polling and surveys conducted by several organisations in recent years,includingAustralian Election Study surveys by the Australian National University in 2016 and 2019,have repeatedly placed public support for the concept above 60 per cent.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has appealed to this baseline support,describing the Voice as a “modest change” that will deliver constitutional recognition and provide for Indigenous people to be consulted on laws that affect them. But the federal opposition has sought to crystallise focus on the Voice itself as the wrong model for achieving recognition,which it claims to otherwise support.

The latest Resolve Political Monitor,conducted this month,shows 58 per cent of voters back the Voice – down from 63 per cent in support in August – and 42 per cent oppose the change when people are asked a Yes or No question without the option of saying they are undecided.

Parkin said he was not concerned by the polling,which still points to majority support in all states,and said the Yes campaign had signed up 5000 people as volunteers in the past two months to drive a ground campaign across Australian neighbourhoods.

“The opportunity now for us is,now that the legal and political discussions that have dominated the debate over the last few months are kind of coming to the end,is making sure we take it out of Canberra and take it back to the communities,” Parkin said.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news,views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletterhere.