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Combating Listener Burnout

Charles Shultz expressed the phenomenon of vocal tune-out best whenever we heard the familiar “wah wah wah” used to characterize the voice for every adult in a Peanuts cartoon.  Kids are notorious for tuning out their parent’s who often come across as nagging and monotonous.

But why do adults tune out certain voices?  The answer is simple; familiarity. Ever think your spouse just isn’t listening to you?  It’s because they aren’t. A major medical study a few years back revealed that spouses, after only a few years of marriage, actually start to tune one another out. How many times have you sat across from your significant other thinking: “I know your lips where moving but I have no idea what you said?”

This behavior is not limited to home. Voices that become too familiar to us eventually get tuned out. As members of the advertising and media industries we work to combat this problem every day.

We all know that every local advertising market shares just a handful of VO talent, most of whom work at the local radio stations. Local clients use these same voices year after year to promote a variety of products and services. Many of these local talent have lived and worked in the same area for years so most of the listening audience can tune them out as easily as they can forget what they ate for breakfast yesterday.

Clients now realize the ease of finding and using talent well outside of the county line in order to get their products to stand out. These out of market voices can reinvent airwaves virtually overnight by snapping your listeners back to attention and making your spots effective again and many for LESS than you are paying for the tired local voice.

VoiceHunter.com can easily access dozens of qualified professionals in no time. Vo talent are eager, they are available and best yet they are unique to your market. So get your client a freelancer or two and see just how effective a new sound can be.

 
     
The Importance of Out - of - Market Voices for Radio Stations

In addition to the information in the article above stations must pay attention to the problems they face with audience tune-out.

Every radio market has a conglomerate with at least one self-enamored production director whose voices can be heard on 90% of the station produced spots for 5 stations. He or she can usually be heard 3-5 times a stop set. So, of course the listeners are sick of hearing “that guy”.  If you don’t have an air staff that can be utilized for spots then consider seeking out a few frelance VO talent. Many are very affordable. These out of market voices can reinvent your airwaves virtually overnight by snapping yours listeners back to attention and making your spots effective again.

A station’s imaging can also suffer greatly from too much of a good thing. Your imaging voice of the last 5 years might have been a fresh, vibrant, new sound….but that was 5 years ago. If you’re gut is telling you that your current voices are getting stale and tired within the imaging of your station, they are. Many instances don’t require an all out change but rather a simple ‘fresh’ voice to compliment your existing voice(s).

The only way to keep your imaging from suffering the same fate as your spots is to mix it up, often. Sure you can keep your mainstay guy but cut some of his copy back per month and add an alternate voice to the air. Another guy (or girl) can be an effective attention getter. 

The best stations know that spreading an imaging budget among three or more talent is an excellent way to use a very talented group of performers. After all –you wouldn’t have just one jock…would you?

 

 

  
 
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