The voice isn't just a show, it's a powerful asset for your brand if you use the right one.

Hello and welcome to this episode of Speak PR. My name is Jim James, and this is the podcast for you if you've got value locked up in your organization and you're just looking for some cost-effective and some simple ways to share that. And today I'm joined all the way from Australia by an old friend called Ant Bowen, who is an international sound specialist. Ant, welcome.

Thank you, Jim. Thank you very much.

Now, and we're going to talk about Sound and audio and voiceovers today. This is something that I know you've done for companies big and small. Tell us, you've mentioned before that it's expensive to get an amateur to do your voiceover. Why is it worth the investment to spend a bit of money to get the right voice for your brand?

Right. Well, yes, I guess in some ways, yes, there is the old saying of if you think it's expensive to hire a professional, hire an amateur first. When people think of brands, and we'll go, I guess we'll think directly of the example of a television commercial or something that you see regularly. That voice that you hear has been auditioned by advertising agencies and creative directors and people who are in charge of making the campaign work to work with that brand. And the best example that I can think of off the top of my head is here in Australia, there's a large retailer called Harvey Norman. And the first time you actually hear— when you hear the voiceover artist voice on there, who's a gentleman called Damian Rafferty, you know that it's going to be Harvey Norman. And his voice is— it's not hard sell, it's not in your face. It's very pleasing and very easy on the ear to listen to, but at the same time, he gets the message of retail across. And this is something that he's very, very practiced at and in taking direction and delivering the read that suits the brand, that suits the whole, for want of a better way to put it, the whole vibe of the commercial.

So if people are thinking about, you know, creating a voice for the brand in the same way they might have a logo and a color and a corporate identity, from what you're saying, then a voice is really part of that corporate identity. So how does a company, an individual or a bigger company decide on what kind of voice, male, female, high pitch, low pitch? Can you guide us through the steps to make the decision?

Certainly. I think really, I mean, with the different industries and it's gonna depend a great deal on what the industry you are working in and what the company you are working for is representing. If you wanna take a bank, for example, If you go— if it's a corporate bank, then it's going to be someone who has, you know, a very prestigious voice, something that sort of commands attention and is, you know, in some ways maybe oozes success and goes with the feeling that this company and this brand is very successful and we build on that. But if it's a bank that's appealing to the general public, whether it be families or— well, yeah, the general public being families and things. It's going to be spoken in such a different way, in a very warm voice, to talk to you directly, the client, because we can help you. That sort of a feeling and things, rather than being something big and prestigious and you can trust us with loads and loads and loads of money. That sort of thing.

Right. So really representing the brand through the choice. So should it be male or female or do you need a male and a female spokesperson, do you think?

I think you'd take it very much from the point of view of what, say for example, in an advertising campaign actually would be. If the campaign was actually showing, sorry, if the story of the campaign was that it's a mum and kids leaving for school and there's a lot of family involved, or perhaps we're sort of going at it from the commercials going from the direction of a mother, then it probably would have a female voice to it. But if we're talking about maybe something else, a different storyline in the commercial, whether it's something that's centered around a young dad or something like that, then you would probably have a male voice. But those decisions are very much made by an advertising agency who you would employ to do such things. And of course they would run it by you first. They would present you with a bunch of different options and you would choose the idea that you would like the most. And then you work up from there as to how you actually develop your campaign from there.

How can the average company access a voiceover artist?

Years ago, there would be the voiceover agency that would have many, many people on their books and you would ring them on the phone and they would sort of run the idea past you and of who you'd like to see. But now with the world being on the internet as it is, there are many, many, many voiceover agencies online which will represent major actors and also people who do voiceovers for a living. And I think that's sort of also a distinction that needs to be made as well too, that Voiceover actors may not necessarily be screen actors, but they're people who make a big— who make their living from doing just purely voiceovers and taking direction from people, from directors and advertising agencies or wherever the session is being recorded. But also there are many, many people like myself who also have their own business and also run their voiceover business directly online as well too. So you can search for a voiceover artist, male voiceover artist, and you could find any number of people who would be able to help you. I mean, this is very much a global thing. You could find people who are purely an Australian voice or purely an English voice, and you can deal directly with those, with voiceover artists without necessarily having to go through an agency. It's not always going to be the case if you are chasing— I've had a mental blank of thinking of any particular actors, but if you are chasing an actor who's been in Game of Thrones or something like that, you will probably end up having to go through an agency. But having said that, there are many agents— sorry, there are many websites where you can choose voiceovers that you can have a listen to.

And in terms of the, the sort of the process and the cost, and how would I do that then if I have got, let's say, a desire to have the telephone message that when people are called up the showroom, for example, and they need to be on hold, would I go online and then send them a script, or would they write the script and send that to me? And what sort of costs are we looking at, do you think?

It's a bit of a piece of string question, this one. Many people, many voiceover artists will do telephone on hold for sure. And you would send them the script and say, obviously all the details of your company name and also padding it out further of the services that you offer and so on and so on. There are This varies around the world. There are different rate cards in some countries, in certain countries for each of these prices and each of these types of voiceovers and things like that. Certainly here in Australia, we have one. And whereas in other parts of the world, it's a negotiated rate with that voiceover artist that you're actually using. So depending on where you are would depend on how much it may or may not actually cost. To be honest, ideally that is the best way because it works better everybody in the industry. However, you more often than not, you can actually negotiate directly with a voiceover artist as well too.

Right, yeah, I found for the, for a podcast that I was making that I could get a voiceover for a sort of a 30-second to 1 minute for about £40 to £50 for, you know, just a standard readover. And then, and then in terms of the license and the right to use that. If I have, say, you in Australia do a voiceover for me, can I use your voice all over the world? Do I own that or do you have rights on that? How does that work?

No, you can, because you've paid the fee that you negotiate with either the voiceover artist agent or the voiceover artist directly. No, you own that. That's now yours. So yes, you don't have to— on something like a telephone on-hold message, you don't actually have to pay residuals or rollovers or anything like that. With something like a television commercial, however, more often than not, you would— it would be a license, for want of a better word, for probably maybe 12 months. Again, it varies from— it varies in country to country and things as well too. And let's say in this instance that it is a 12-month license. Then if you rolled the ad over into the following year, then you would pay the artist again for the next 12 months.

So what advice would you give someone then, Ant, that is looking to have a voiceover for, let's say, a number of different— like they've got maybe a YouTube channel, they've maybe got a podcast, maybe they've got a call on hold, maybe the in-store announcements? What can you give us some tips of, you know, how to look for and what qualities that you think someone should go for in that voiceover?

Many, many voiceover artists, myself included, as I said before, we've all got our own websites and you will find on that website a section where you can listen to other things that they've recorded previously. So there'll be a demos page where they'll have a compilation of television or radio commercials that they've done in the past. If they've done a lot of work over the years and things like that, it won't just be television commercials and radio commercials that they've done. There will be, there will be messages on hold, or there will be explainer videos, or there will be things like that. And there'll be examples that you can audition directly off the site. You can play directly off the site. Or you can actually download an MP3 file or a WAV file and you can send that round to other staff members or other people in your organization and say, look, what do you think of this voice? Or how do you feel that this is the right voice for the campaign that we'd actually like to run?

And can you give us any examples of ones that you think have gone really badly and any examples Where either you've been involved with or you've heard online and really thought that the voice is just not helping the brand?

I think it's possibly a common conception that what certainly some brands will do, let's say for example that someone's decided, yeah, I want Tyrion Lannister, I want one of the actors from Game of Thrones and I found out how much it will actually cost to get the actor. from Game of Thrones. And then we've thought, no, actually Darryl down in marketing has got a really good voice because he actually emceed the company dinner last week and everybody thought he was funny and terrific and he's got a great voice and he was really good. And so people use Darryl from marketing. And the problem is when Darryl actually gets in front of a microphone and he's not actually standing in front of an audience who are responding to all his jokes that he's been saying for years and things like that, Darryl just clams up. And Darryl, suddenly Darryl's read may sound very stilted and not really what you want to be hearing for your business or your product. Whereas if you actually hire a voiceover professional and someone who does it for a living, they'll look at a script and they'll find out what you'll— they will ask and they will find out what you want to get from that script, what you want to feel from that script. Do you want to feel— do you want your listeners or your audience to feel that they're warm and they're relating to your company? Do you want it to have a prestigious feel? Do you want it to be a lighthearted feel? Is it a comedic thing? Is it something that's entertaining in terms of, you know, it's quirky and things like that? And that's the value in hiring someone who does voiceovers for a living rather than Darryl in marketing.

So in terms of the kind of work that you're doing, can you share with us a project that you've worked on that you think is a really great case study for getting a brand across or any other product or service?

This almost sounds like I'm touting my own horn and I guess in some ways I am. I actually won an award last year for a documentary that I did a voice on and the documentary, a voiceover on, and the documentary was about bushfires and wildfires that we've had here in Australia over the years. And it was for the Country Fire Authority, which is, as the name suggests, is the volunteer fire brigade. And they wanted to actually get across what, you know, the different histories of fire and the big ones that we've had here in Australia. Now, the voice that I did for that the voice that I did for that was terribly serious because it was dealing with a pretty bleak subject matter. Because, you know, many, many people died and a lot of livestock was lost and property was lost and things like that. So it was, yes, it was a fairly bleak voiceover. It was keeping the viewers interested in getting the facts across and things like that. But at the same time, it was very somber as well too. So That voice, as I said, that particular voiceover won me an award, which I was very, very pleased to receive. It was great. So if you had a different voice who was, well, if it was Darryl from marketing going, and then in 1983, the Ash Wednesday bushfires came through and completely decimated Melbourne, it didn't have the same effect as, in 1983, the Ash Wednesday bushfires came through and decimated Melbourne. That was— that's it. Look, that's a very quick and off-the-head example of what I'm trying to get across. It's choosing the right voice to get the message across is the main thing. And certainly the same as— I know I keep coming back to this, but certainly the same with radio commercials and TVCs, television commercials. People will choose a voice appropriate to whether it's advertising that's in your face and everybody really sort of needs to know about it very quickly, or whether it's something that needs to be warm and sentimental and heartfelt. They're very two different reads. And whilst, while some voiceover actors, voiceover artists are not actors, they are essentially in the same way actors as well too, because they are acting. They are taking a script and then bringing it to life off page. So yeah, it's how they interpret what they're given, and more often than not, Because of when you work with an experienced person, they'll be able to give you tips or maybe work out a better way of saying a sentence that you might have written for them or to get a message across because that's their gig. That's what they do for a living, day in, day out.

Fantastic, Ant. And if someone wants to find out about you, where can they find Ant Bowen, audio voiceover extraordinaire?

Well, Jim, you can find me— sorry, that was a very obvious joke that came out of nowhere, Jim. You can find my voiceover side of my business on @bohunvoiceover.com, and Bohun is spelled B-O-H-U-N. And you can find the, the, the sound engineering side of my business at soundplease.com.au.

And thank you so much. You and I go back a long way from our early days in SynchroSound Studio in Malaysia back in '96, '97. So it's a pleasure to catch up with you again, my old friend. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us.

You're very welcome, Jim. Thank you very much for the opportunity. I appreciate it.

So you've been listening to Ant Bowen in Australia talking about the impact of voiceovers and how to choose the right person to represent your brand. You've been listening to the Speak PR podcast. My name is Jim James. So thank you for listening. And until we meet again, I wish you the best of health, a profitable business, and that if you're gonna have someone speak for your brand, make sure it's the right voice.