Proud Voices

Find the Right Voiceover for your Commercial, Web Video, or Brand

If your production company is creating a commercial for television or the internet, finding voice talent is essential that speaks for the brand is essential. A confident, informative voice that speaks to your customers can lead to better “brand awareness”, increased sales, and connection with your customer base. An amazing video with a poor quality voiceover can leave a bad taste in the mouth of a viewer or potential customer. A voiceover is part of the “branding process” which represents your company as a whole.

What type of “voice” represents your brand?

In order to determine which voiceover artist should represent your brand ideal in your video, you must first consider who your customers are. This voice should be created specifically to relate to these people. With you commercial, you are speaking directly to your customers, so this voice should be relatable and unique.

Character Creation

In order to relate better with your customers and come up with a character that speaks to them, you need to put yourself in their shoes.

- Are your customers “stay at home moms”?

- Are they college aged males looking for car part?

- What other needs do they have that can influence their decision to purchase your product?

Once you take a minute to think about who your customers are and who you are selling your product to, you should think about how to speak to them.

An example of a character that speaks to “soccer moms” can be a female voice concerned with their family, the household, and their image. This type of character will think about the ups and downs in their kids lives, household choses, and their own body image. Moms are well-known to have buying power and they are more likely to buy from a voice they can relate to. A like-minded character can create trust and faith in a brand.

Another example of character could be for an auto parts store with a 18-25 year old male demographic. For a college aged male demo, choosing a young voice that is concerned with driving an impressive, well accessorized vehicle, will help sell auto parts.

A story that talks about to their need to impress their peers with a cool vehicle will help sell products. It feeds on the idea that purchasing the product will make them popular or successful among their peers.

What should your video or commercial say to customer?

Now that you have created an a character or “ideal consumer” for your brand, you need to consider the content of the commercial. Buyers are motivated by many different needs including greed, avoidance of pain, urgency and fear of missing out. These are all motivations that can be used to make a potential consider the purchase of your product.

Urgency – This is a sales cue that is seen in many late night infomercials. These commercials create the feeling that a customer will “miss out” on such a great opportunity that they would be stupid to not buy the product. Urgency can be created by “limited time” offers, special 1 time only deals, or added saving if a customer purchases within a limited time frame.

Avoidance of Pain – Studies show that people are more likely to be motivated by “fear” or “avoidance of pain”, than by the benefit of the product itself.

For example, a weight loss product that explores the customers fear of looking overweight on a beach may be more effective than speaking about the actual weight loss itself.

- An example of this type of character would be a slightly overweight 28 year old female that is dreading the first days of summer because they are not in shape to visit the beach with friends and family.

Greed – People are always want ways to look better, make more money, and be more popular. These are very strong motivations that affect everyone on the earth. Appealing to these interests by pairing your product with a celebrity that has these characteristics, can help you sell your product.

Examples of this are seen everywhere in today’s celebrity centered culture. The acne product Proactive pairs its product with the most popular celebrities that speak directly to their demographic. People like Justin Beiber and Jessica Simpson are known for being successful, rich, and popular. These are traits that all companies would like consumers to associate with their products.