Research shows that female voiceovers are more generally effective when targeting women
Each year marketers spend millions on carefully crafted creative for each media channel in hopes of emotionally connecting with consumers, yet stereotypes still prevail when it comes to talent. Many articles have been written about hiring more female directors through the Free the Bid campaign, but little attention has been given to talent selection – particularly voiceovers.
In our previous client-side jobs and even today as we advise clients, there is still a prevalent belief that male voiceover talent is more effective than female VO’s. And that’s simply not true.
Research then, and still today, shows that male and female voiceover talent are equally effective. However, there can be engagement differences depending upon the product and the core audience as revealed in an article published last November in Media Village.
Author Pierre Bouvard writes, “Marketers spend millions on establishing their brands and want to know what’s driving campaign return-on-investment (ROI). That’s where third-party companies like Nielsen come in – to connect the dots with data. In an ROI study of 500 advertising campaigns, Nielsen looked at which elements contribute to sales on all major media platforms. By a huge margin, creative was the strongest sales driver. It was responsible for nearly 50% of all sales lift…Women in fact prefer female voiceovers in AM/FM radio ads.”
Mr. Bouvard’s article has great data points and graphs from Nielsen that reveal just how more effective female voiceovers can be when targeting women – so give it a read.
