Broadcaster David Lloyd takes a look at how businesses and brands can build trust with their audience.
It’s Monday morning, and you’re still feeling no better. Head and body throbbing, you pick up the phone in your trembling, sweaty hand and call your doctor’s surgery.
As they answer, within seconds, you judge to what extent you feel you can rely on them. You’ll quickly decide whether you think the person answering is sitting at a shiny desk, wearing a white coat, meticulously filing your records – or whether life down at your surgery sounds altogether more disorganised.
That verdict, of course, maybe wholly flawed. You have judged simply on the sound of their voice.
Staying with medical matters, some fascinating Stanford University research into placebos concluded not only how practical these inert approaches can be – but also that symptoms improved more promptly when the impotent ‘injection’ was given by a doctor conveying warmth and confidence. The report’s lead author observed: “Research on the placebo effect has long shown the importance and power of a physician’s words”.
If a voice can heal, think about what it can do for the bottom line.
The human voice speaks volumes about how the narrator feels.
When your friend calls; and reassures you that all is fine in their life, you immediately know if they are concealing some inner worry, just by the tone of their voice. Their voice exposes the reality.
These reactions illustrate the value that a voice can bring to a brand. Photos, video content and other social media relying on captions or animated text forsake that key opportunity. In reading text for themselves, a consumer will ‘hear’ the tone that suits the values they already attach to the brand for good or ill.
The voice has to be at least as necessary as pantones, pictures or a pretty logo. How many times have you changed your view of someone the second they opened their mouth?
How much more emotion can be vested in the spoken word than the written word – whether love, excitement, warmth, worry, trust or humour. Kenneth Williams once said he could read from the phone book and make it sound amusing.
Related: Explore hundreds of Voice types, tones and characteristics
Furthermore, the efficiency of voice-over can convey a lot of information that would otherwise clutter visuals.
Think too how quickly you recognise a voice.
Consumers’ quickly become familiar with the voice, and it becomes a powerful additional brand asset. Today’s greatest brands recognise the value of voice – of personifying their brand in sound.
As Simon Sinek said in his excellent book ‘Start With Why’: “We trust those with whom we are able to perceive common values or beliefs”. The voice is an impeccable way of establishing whether someone is ‘like us’. If the voice a brand employs feels like someone with whom a customer would associate, then it can help to deepen the brand relationship.
“We trust those with whom we are able to perceive common values or beliefs” — Simon Sinek
Authenticity is a word that permeates my world of UK radio currently. Gone are the booming on-air voices of yesteryear favouring a more casual and natural sound – in both language and delivery.
Whilst rich, fruity tones may be spot on for a movie trailer or a quirky voice great for a character—media channels seeking to build a relationship with their audience are increasingly turning to more natural vocal approaches. Listen to the range of style and accents compared with yesterday’s insistence on received pronunciation (RP) or ‘BBC English’.
On radio now, witness how the presenters open up about their lives, successes, challenges, and vulnerabilities – and their stories draw upon the most remarkable story-telling techniques, vocabulary, pace, and tone. Through their voice alone, they build the sort of relationship which means that listeners will miss them when they’re not on-air. Remember the outpouring of grief when the UK lost Terry Wogan?
It takes a particular skill, however, to sound natural.
While that conclusion may appear counter-intuitive, it is the same self-awareness and comprehension of its power, which helps the voice actor or narrator understand how to utter someone else’s words conversationally.
They understand how to sound themselves – when talking to no one but a metal microphone. Studies label this ‘paralinguistic’ communication – where the modulation of the voice, as opposed to the words, is used to enhance persuasion.
Paralinguistic communication is where voice modulation enhances persuasion as opposed to words.
I recall the days when clients used to insist on reading their local radio ads. Some pulled it off, but frequently they didn’t. Although they may have been a thoroughly dependable car salesman, the campaign became worthless if they didn’t sound like one.
Similarly, how many people out of media protest that their recorded voice ‘doesn’t sound like me’. Hearing your voice in isolation, through your ears rather than bouncing off the bones in their head, they assert that their voice somehow doesn’t do them justice.
Sounding yourself is more challenging than it might seem.
Forensic speech scientists can detect whether a speaker is delivering a written text or ad-libbing. Listeners, too, can subconsciously notice whether someone is speaking their own words or someone else’s.
I envy the professional voice-over talent with the true gift of owning the words they are delivering, injecting the perfect pace, pause, pitch, inflexion, emphasis, and melody alongside the warmth or authority that suits the script.
At Voquent, there are thousands of professional voice-over talents worldwide—each with a unique voice. Have a browse to help you decide which one best helps to tell your story.
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