When it comes to creating a winning political campaign, political ads probably play one of the most significant roles. That’s exactly why the 2012 elections saw political groups spending over $3 billion on TV ads alone. You might ask if it’s really worth spending that kind of money on such ads. Well, it obviously seems be to the case and there are many factors involved in making these ads effective.
But, a new study shows that the gender of the voiceover talent has a huge role to play in determining the efficacy of such political ads.
The Study
The study, titled “In a Different Voice? Explaining the Use of Men and Women as Voice-Over Announcers in Political Advertising”, which was conducted in 2015 and published in Political Communication, looked at factors such as effectiveness, frequency, and perceptions of credibility in accordance with male and female voiceovers.
A team of 5 researchers, supervised by Patricia Strach from the University of Albany, studied over 7000 political ads from the 2010 and 2012 US elections. The researchers then compared the data with presidential vote outcome statistics of individual congressional districts from 2008 and 2012. They also compared the data with statistics from credibility polls, the 2012 presidential campaign, Pew Center polls, and the audience gender.
The study found that men voiced a majority of the political ads from both years (2010 and 2012). Around 62.7% of the ads had been voiced by men, while 27.7% were voiced by women. The remaining 9.7% of ads were voiced by both genders.
It was also observed that ads with female voiceovers were more effective when speaking of women’s issues such as education, healthcare, and childcare. These ads were more likely to be voiced by female voiceover artists with 41.9%being the predicted probability. It was also noted that female voices were used more for negative ads and in ads that discussed the candidate as a person. Rarely were female voiceovers used for ads discussing the candidate’s policy proposals.
Republicans relied on using female voiceovers more than their rivals, the Democrats. The predicted probability of a female voiceover being used by the Republicans was 42%. As for the Democrats, it was 28.3%.
On the whole, female voiceovers were seen as having less credibility. Men were likely to relate more with male voiceovers, especially when men’s issues such as foreign policy and crime were being discussed. In the case of female voiceovers, women audiences were able to relate better, especially when the ads spoke of women’s issues.
The Takeaway
Political ads work very differently. They’re nothing like your commercial ads, where the voiceover artist’s gender has a very different impact. In the case of political ads, male voices were still seen as being more credible, especially with regard to topics such as international affairs and national politics. Female voices were seen relevant in the context of women’s issues only.
So, deciding on a male or female voice ultimately boils down to the topic the political ad is going to discuss.
ABOUT ROBERTA –
Roberta is a Professional AND award Winning International Voiceover Actor, as well as an accomplished on-camera actress and spokesperson. She lives in the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area and is the owner of Roberta Kennedy Voice Talent and RK Productions, Inc.
She voices for companies around the world using her state of the art, broadcast quality studio. She’s hired for commercials, web demos and explainer videos, product infomercials, documentaries, promo/imaging, political ads, e-learning videos, podcasts, guided real estate tours, telephony/IVR projects, high profile corporate presentations, video games and character animation.
Her voice is described as: playful, contemporary, compelling, commanding, inviting, sultry and smooth. A hip edge with sophistication, bold, warm, interesting and engaging are also commonly used adjectives to describe her voice.
Her home studio is equipped with ipDTL, ISDN and phone patch capability with lightning fast turnaround times! A voiceover talent with over 20 years of voiceover acting experience, she offers a full range of voiceover services at highly competitive rates & will work with your budget to help you promote your business to new levels of excellence!
To request a personal quote or audition and/or to review more of her credits & demos, feel free to visit her website:www.robertakennedy.com – or mail her atroberta@robertakennedy.com. You can even give her a call on (408) 313-7202.