If your TV commercial doesn’t have voiceover, you’re likely missing out on thousands of impressions
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As a voice over artist, this may sound a little self-serving. but hear me out – when your TV commercial has no voiceover, only relying on peppy music and eye-catching videos, you’re missing out on a great deal of value for your investment in advertising. Let me explain why.
We first started seeing the no voiceover trend in movie trailers. Back in the day, pretty much all movie trailers had that signature deep voiced guy – “In a world…” But at some point, the trend shifted. Nowadays, more often than not, there’s simply no voiceover in the trailer. There are reasons for the shift away from movie trailer voiceovers – studies have shown that they just don’t resonate with audiences like they used to. Also, a movie trailer audience is “captive” (I’ll explain more in a minute).
The no voiceover trend has moved into television commercials as well. I’ve noticed not just national, but also regional, as well as local broadcast advertising with no voice. It recently occurred to me why this can be incredibly damaging to a commercial campaign.
Captive vs. Passive Ad Consumption
There’s a big difference between an audience in a movie theater watching trailers, and an audience watching TV at home. In the movie theater, people are in their seats, doing nothing but waiting for the movie to begin. Chances are much higher that their eyes will be on the screen. However, with TV viewing at home, people are multi-tasking…especially in the morning, as they’re getting ready for their day.
Part of my routine in the morning while I’m starting my day is having the TV on. I’m a very consistent viewer of our local ABC affiliate…what they call a “P1” in the industry. If a guy like me gets an invitation to participate in a ratings survey for my market, the station I watch every morning would do very well.
After I turn on the TV, I begin my other morning routines – I’m cleaning up around the house, making coffee, maybe getting something to eat. Also, I’m reviewing my agenda for the day, checking email and browsing social media.
Let’s say I have the TV on for a total of one hour. Of that one hour, the total time I’m actually LOOKING at the TV? A fraction of that…maybe 5 or 10 minutes at the most. Because I’m multi-tasking the entire time, I’m only looking up when I hear something that sounds interesting enough to stop whatever it is I’m doing at the time. Then after a few seconds, it’s back to whatever it was I was doing.
No Voice Over = Thousands of Missed Impression Opportunities
There’s a commercial that runs every single morning, sometimes several times per morning, on the station I watch. The music for this commercial is an earworm…sometimes it gets stuck in my head all day long. You’d think that would be a good thing, right? Well, here’s what the advertiser would be shocked to learn: even though I’ve heard their commercial music dozens of times, and it’s ingrained in my head, it wasn’t until just the other day that I happened to look up and see what business this commercial was for!! Dozens and dozens of AUDIO impressions, completely worthless, because there was nothing that I could HEAR that told me who the commercial was for.
If I was this advertiser, I would be incredibly upset to learn of the many missed opportunities for impressions of my brand, all because of a simple, yet highly impactful oversight. Think about it – dozens of missed opportunities for an impression, all from just one single viewer. Assuming that there are at least hundreds of viewers like me, who are listening but not looking, and we’re talking about thousands of missed impression opportunities.
Television ad campaigns are a significant investment for a business, even more so for a smaller sized business. These businesses cannot afford to compromise the effectiveness of their campaign by skipping the voiceover, and missing out on so many impressions.
The Solution – Voiceover in a TV Commercial
Even if the focal point of a television ad is visual, it still must be supplemented by voiceover. At the very least, a simple tag at the end with the business name and location and/or website. Whether doing a direct buy with a TV station, or working with an ad agency, a business needs to insist on this, in order to get the most bang for their advertising buck.
Looking for a voice for your next broadcast commercial campaign? Click here to book AJ Dukette now!