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The Car Commercial: A Dealer And An Ad Agency Tell Us How They Choose The Right Voice

A dealer and an ad agency tell how they they choose the right voice for their car commercials. What will help brand identity give the greatest impact.

If there’s one type of commercial that really stands out in the voiceover department, it’s the car commercial. There’s something about car commercial voiceovers that really help them stand out. Have you ever wondered what the magic behind this occurrence is?

Well, there really is no magic as such. It’s just that the people advertising cars know what they exactly want. Here’s what they have to say.

It’s All About Brand Identity

According to Jen Price, the Creative Producer for Dick Hannah Car Dealership, the talent you choose for your car ads have to reflect the brand’s identity. Traditionally, Dick Hannah has always relied on energetic male voiceovers.

However, as the brand grew to cover a more diverse range of vehicles, they decided to make a few changes. They started working on projects for each individual dealership. For instance, their Kia dealership ads were voiced by a woman because the dealership’s General Manager happened to be a woman.

According to Jen, this allowed the store to develop a unique personality of its own.

Another aspect that Dick Hanna focuses on is the company motto, which is “Believe in Nice”. Therefore, extra efforts are made to select voiceover talents that can reflect the company motto.

Strategy Oriented

Professional ad agencies have a slightly different approach to car commercials. According to Donald New, Creative Director for Leverage Group Creative Media, the company goes through a series of audition before narrowing down the list of viable options.

Once they settle on a few right voices, the demos are sent to the client. However, Donald adds, there is always one voice that the agency finds perfect for the ad strategy that they’ve come up with. So, there is some amount of nudging from the agency’s side to pick their favorite.

However, it is the client that makes the ultimate decision. Once the voice is chosen, the ad agency will use the same voice for all of the client’s projects until further notice is given by the client or until the ad agency updates the current strategy.

If the voice needs to be changed, the ad agency restarts the entire process all over again.

Impact

The key point to remember here is that, whatever voice you choose, the impact at the end is what matters. A car commercial voiceover must have personality and life. It must be able to convince the customer that they really need to go out and buy the vehicle.


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 at roberta@robertakennedy.com. You can even give her a call on (408) 313-7202.