Brand imaging in commercial voiceover
Presented by Kay Bess at the 2024 Euro VO Retreat in Barcelona, Spain
Kay and I after our farewell dinner
This session twisted us mentally. The techniques Kay taught go against everything we normally do in commercial VO. We’re not selling anything, or emoting with our voice. We let the music/sound design and visuals do the work.
What distinguishes a brand imaging commercial from other types of commercials, is:
The product name is rarely ever mentioned, and the writing is exemplary.
It always has visuals, so there’s no brand imaging for radio. (Radio imaging is a whole different genre.)
She quoted Nancy Wilson as saying, “we’re voicing under, not voicing over.”
“This is probably the hardest thing for us to grasp as voice actors, is that [in brand imaging commercials] we are not the main thing. The picture is the main thing. The picture is the storyteller.
“We've all turned down the sound on commercials and still gotten the gist of the message. So in a certain sense, we're not even necessary, which is weird because we're like, we have the language and we’re supporting the picture and music with language. But we have to let the picture and music do their job, and relieve ourselves of the burden of telling the story and conveying all the emotion. So it makes our job easy.” - Kay Bess
A clue in the specs for this kind of commercial is that it may say the word “anthemic” as a descriptor. But that word is only meant to describe the spot—not how we’re going to read it. It’s not a descriptor of the voice.
A big piece of brand imaging VO is subtlety and quiet. You have to get in touch with the quietest voice you have when doing these kinds of spots. You’re not operating from a stage. Pretend you’re sitting in a room with one person talking to them.
A few examples of brand imaging in commercials:
Everyone had their own opinions about how it felt to read in such a detached way (we didn’t like it, it seemed wrong lol), and on how the final reads were produced when they aired. But now I’m armed with another tool for my VO technique belt. :)