Choosing The Right Gender For Your Voiceover

Choosing the right Gender voice for a business voice over is important. The right tone, personality, pace – it all has an impact on how effective your voiceover is.

One of the biggest decisions of all though is which gender voice to choose. It is such a challenging decision because it has such a huge influence on the way your voiceover sounds and how it connects to your message.

To help you Choosing The Right Gender voice for your project, consider the following:

Where Will Your Recording Be Played?

Considering where the recording will be played is really important when it comes to choosing the right gender. If it is played over a one-minute video ad, it will likely be slower and a mixture of different styles can be used. For radio advertising, they are usually incredibly fast and the person may have to put a lot of personality into the ad in a very short space of time. Combined with the product and the message, a female or male voice on a radio ad could be a key takeaway for your audience.

What Is The Purpose Of Your Voiceover?

Are you providing e-learning to your company? Are you promoting a new product? Are you sending out a PR?

Depending on the purpose of your voiceover the gender you choose is so important. Gender will influence your audience.

If we approach the stereotypes attached to the male voice you may connect it to:

• Authority
• Masculinity
• Strong
• To the point
• Trust (with men with a lower pitch)

With a woman?s voice, your audience may connect it to:

• Friendliness
• Femininity
• High-energy
• Intelligence
• Sex

Of course, these are huge generalizations and all kinds of voices can hold all kinds of qualities. However, you have to acknowledge stereotyping in advertising because it is a factor as to how your audience receives your message.

Understanding the purpose of your voiceover in full can help you get a better idea of the right gender for your project.

Assumed Authority

Assumed authority is where a specific type of person, or voice, in this instance is assumed to know about a certain product. For example; a sanitary product advertised on a video requires a female voiceover for the audience to feel fully understood. If you are doing an e-learning program on men?s physical health a male voiceover might be more appropriate. Again, it isn?t about being forward-thinking but working on the facts.

Everything Means Something

If you use a voice that is out of place, that in itself can seem like an intentional message which can actually detract from the purpose of your content.

That is of course unless you want to make a point for the purpose of branding. Using a woman to advertise car insurance, for example, can work well if your intention is to target women who want an insurance brand that understands them.

Focus Groups Can Help

When it seems really unclear which gender to choose for your voiceover, consider using a focus group. With professional voiceover samples in both male and female tones, you can ascertain the most positive responses, helping you choose the right gender for your voiceover based on facts, not assumptions.

Speak To The Professionals

For more advice on whether to use a female or male voice over for your project, speak to a professional voice over agency. Ideally use one that has experience in a wide range of voiceover applications and who has a bank of many voice actors.

The specific experience and vast array of resources available from a professional company can help you get a better idea of what is on offer, and understand the different options available to you. Knowing all the facts and all your options is the first step to making the right decision when it comes to your voiceover gender.

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