Female voice more convincing in radio commercials
okt-09 Portfolio General News
Groningen- A Male or female voice in radio commercials. What is more effective?
For a long time, there has been much controversy. Therefore, Soundbase has initiated a research project in cooperation with Rijksuniversiteit Groningen on the effect of the gender of a speaker on valuation of commercials. The result: in most cases a female voice is more effective. Whereas in practice, most of the time male voice-overs are used.
Remarkable results
Unconsciously, the average listener is still led by prejudice based on age-old stereotypes. The result of this research project shows clearly that male voices are preferred when typically male products are concerned. In case of typically female products, there is a slight preference for a female voice. So far, this is nothing new. But what happens when a neutral product is the topic of a commercial? For example, a coffee machine or furniture. The results show that in this case, a female voice is far more persuasive. When advertised by a woman, a neutral product is rated considerably higher. This means that the gender of the speaker does have an influence on the final decision of purchase. Remarkable? Actually, yes. Particularly when we consider daily practice. In the major part of radio commercials of neutral products a male voice is heard. Yet, for how long?
Female voice always “more kind” and more “attractive”
The research project has also focused on characteristics that were attributed to the speaker. A male voice referring to a male project was considered as ‘reliable’ and ‘professional’. In commercials for women products, the same goes for female voices. It is striking that in all cases, a female voice is considered to be ‘more kind’ and ‘more attractive’.
The experiment
The experiment was set up and executed by Lieke Heerze, student Communication and Information sciences. She has rated responses on several radio commercials of the test persons. To rule out any coincidence, only radio commercials that had been developed especially for the experiment were used. Composer and sound designer Renger Koning of Soundbase is enthusiastic about the results. ‘Choices I previously made intuitively, I can now support with scientifically based findings. Do the results provide added value for the communication branch? Certainly. Using a male voice in a radio commercial for a neutral product appears not to be strategically sensible. A finding that advertisers and agencies will benefit from in future, that’s for sure.’