Voicing Your Own Ads... Sound Effects... and Music Beds

By Roy H. Williams - The Wizard of Ads

(Edited version by Craig Arthur)

“Think of these sound effects as punctuation, a palate cleanser in a multi-course meal, an audio non-sequitur that will elevate attention, then blend into cognitive resolution at a higher level.”

Ask radio listeners or television viewers to name their favorite ads and they’ll usually give you a list of ads that produced high entertainment but low results.

Ask advertisers to name their favorite ads and they’ll smilingly tell you about messages that made them a lot of money, but that no one else remembers.

Old school radio people believe announcers should sound smooth and mellifluous. Flawless. Golden. The new school believes people on the air should sound authentic. Relaxed. Believable.

Has a media person ever told you your voice wasn’t suitable for radio or TV? “Leave it to us. We’ll use one of our professional announcers.”

INTERPRETATION: “We’ll make your ads sound exactly like everyone else’s.”

BOTTOM LINE: Smooth, polished ads are easy to ignore. And they’re less likely to generate results for your business.

I’ve built a career by selling 52-week schedules to clients who need to gain the trust of the public. And I’m widely known to use these clients’ voices in their ads.

Let me level with you. I use client voices for 3 reasons:

(1.) They’re more believable.
(2.) They’re less easy to ignore.
(3.) They create the highest level of personal connection with the listener that can be accomplished through mass media. This trust-bond is essential when the product or service category is one in which the customer has a high level of fear. Diamonds. Used cars. Medical procedures.

But I don’t use client voices…

(1.) when the client sounds like they’re reading a script. (We can usually coach the client past this tendency, however.)
(2.) when the script requires character voices.

Program Directors have been suggesting that I allow them to add music pads beneath my clients’ dry-voice ads for as long as I’ve been in marketing. And I’ve been rejecting their helpful sabotage for just as many years.

Music beds are like soap. They allow you to mix the oil of highly produced music programming – flowing with rhythm and meter – with the repellent water of unstructured talking. In other words, adding a music bed will make your ad less noticeable.

If you’re considering doing your own voice over, here are a few areas where you need to be careful:

1. Be prepared to endure the criticism of friends and family. In a career that has spanned more than a quarter century I’ve noticed that any time results are sharply on the rise, so are complaints. “You really ought to let a professional do your ads…”
2. Avoid clichés and over used phrases. If you say things that feel predicable to your listener, the ad will seem contrived and artificial.
3. Don’t sound like you’re reading. Extemporaneous is good. Mispronunciations are good. And struggling to find just the right word is the stuff of miracles.

Uh-oh. Is this beginning to sound like you might have to record a lengthy chat and then edit bits of it into a warm and cozy patchwork quilt of unrehearsed audio? Ouch, sorry about that. But I never said this was going to be quick or easy. I said only that it was powerful.

I never put music beds beneath these ads but I do occasionally add barely-motivated sound effects.

That’s right. I said barely motivated. I don’t want the effects to flow seamlessly into the ad any more than I want to inject smooth music or oily clichés. Think of these sound effects as punctuation, a palate cleanser in a multi-course meal, an audio non-sequitur that will elevate attention, then blend into cognitive resolution at a higher level.

I didn’t say unmotivated sound effects. I said barely-motivated sound effects. You’re looking for a sound that doesn’t belong, then somehow fits.

If you have any training in music, think of this as a major seventh. In the words of that celebrated composer and symphony conductor Ron Nelson, “The major 7th chord is highly unstable… by simple virtue of the notes used in this chord, it’s primary use is as a portal to a resolution… an end to a phrase, a new key or even a new section of music.”

A major seventh chord is made of notes that don’t quite belong together, but somehow miraculously fit. If you don’t understand music theory, ask a friend who does. This is important.

If you can wrap your arms around what I’ve tried to explain to you today, it will make you – a lot of money.

Good luck.

Comments

[Rubin]

This is why I read www.wizardofads.cmo.au. Incredible posts.

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