Commercial – Advertising Voiceover Q and A from a VO talent’s Point of View

When talking to some of my new voice-over clients, I get asked a lot of questions that have shown their increasing frustration with the hiring process when looking fo­r a voice actor. Here’s a collection of some of those questions and my answers looking at it from a voice actor’s point of view or maybe I should say, “point of voice.”

1) Doesn’t the voiceover talent understand what advertising means?

“Advertising” can mean a lot of different things to VO talent these days. It can be the :30 ad you see while watching TV and the :60 commercial you hear on the radio.  In addition, it can be quick testimonial on a podcast, an audio and clickable ad on a streaming channel, a 6-second “pre roll” ad on YouTube, a video playing as paid placement on Linkedin, Instagram or Facebook, an ad on the pump as you gas up your car, and just about any other application you can imagine. While some don’t use VO, others do, and I’ve voiced each of these and then some.

2) Why are voice over rates all over the map?

The mediums and placement opportunities for advertising are expanding into areas not covered in traditional voice-over rates, so our industry is scrambling. In general, the cost of VO is based on the medium where the ad will run, how long the ad will be used as well as how long the actual VO is on the finished ad itself. Confused yet? Don’t worry. We all are.

3) Why do voice actors freak at the phrase “in perpetuity” and harp on usage?

Because voice buyers don’t want to have to track and account for usage, more and more, voice actors are being asked for “unlimited usage” and “in perpetuity.”

Shouldn’t be a big deal, right? Wrong.

Generally, TV commercials are considered exclusive during the run of the campaign. This means we voice actors cannot voice another TV commercial for any brand that might be considered competition for yours.

Why should that matter? Well, voicing a television ad for use “in perpetuity” means we can never voice for a competing brand ever. Never, ever, ever, ever. An “in perpetuity” rate must account for the income lost.

“Unlimited usage” means the voice over recording can be used anywhere including paid and unpaid social placement, television, radio, telephony, pre-roll…you name it. Since a voice talent is paid based on usage, you can see why the term “unlimited” makes us nervous.

Hopefully, after reading about usage, you have a better understanding of how voice actors are paid. Oh, and I forgot to mention that voice actors also get residuals, just like our on-camera counterparts on advertising projects.

4) Female or Male VO?

Let’s be real. I’m a female voiceover talent so, of course, I’m going to say go with a woman’s voice just about every time, but it’s not just me who says it:

• A study by the University of Glasgow concluded that a female voice instills trust, and in this day and age, where consumers have lost a lot of trust in brands, political leaders and influencers, trust is vital when you’re trying to sell them something.
• Female voices are preferred by both male and female consumers according to several different studies, including those done by Sequent, Plos One and ABX.
• FYI: Women have incredible spending power (impacting 80-90% of all major purchases), but they are underrepresented in radio commercials, according to Westwood One.
• A Neilsen study found brand awareness increased with both male and female consumers when encountering a female VO in commercials.
• Recent studies by Veritonic demonstrate that a woman’s voice rates higher than a man’s for trust, uniqueness and authenticity.

See? It’s not just me who thinks brands need to be using more female voiceover talents.

5) Can’t they just read it faster?

The short answer is, “Why yes we can.” The catch is that it’s not going to sound like the voice in your head when you were writing it.

Most ads on traditional mediums fall into one of three timings: 15 seconds, 30 seconds or 60 seconds. There has been an uptick in 6-second ads on social media, and Pandora recently added a 45-second ad option.

When the legal department gets hold of the ad and starts adding words here and there, many times the copy becomes overwritten and is too long. Unfortunately, many times no one realizes it until the creative team, the client and the talent are all connecting through a studio where time is money and precious minutes are wasted rewriting, seeking client approval, rewriting, re-recording (you get the point).

I love my clients and hate to see them losing money dealing with copy-heavy scripts, so I worked with two techie students to create the free Time Your Script app. You can either cut and paste your actual script or plug in the word count to get an estimate of how long the voice over will be.

Keep in mind, different style reads (conversational, authoritative, high-energy, intimate, etc.) take different lengths of time.

Another tip is to actually read the copy out loud a few times before booking studio time to hear if a phrase sounds counter to the overall tone you’re seeking. For example, if you want a conversational, real-person read, how often do you hear real people say, “and more?”

Bread and Butter

Commercial VO work is truly the bread and butter of most voice actors. Agents and managers encourage us to have a commercial demo at minimum. Many of us cut our teeth on local and regional advertising campaigns when just starting out and love the feathers in our caps from voicing national commercials and ad campaigns. While the definition of “advertising” seems to be ever-changing in the VO world, the ad game is still where most of us have the biggest stake.

Samples of Commercial VO:

Thanks to a referral from fellow female voice talent, Tanger Outlets creative team booked my voice for the retail powerhouse’s big Labor Day Sale.

As a lake lover, it has been an incredible experience working with the marketing team at Yamaha and their creative agency. For many years I’ve done voicing for both national ads and product demos for their watercraft division.

Talk about timing! We had just dropped our oldest off for her freshman year of college when I was booked to record this phone conversation between a mom and her freshman daughter.