Don’t Assume You’re Talking To A Listener Or Viewer When Voicing Commercials

hey there it’s David H Lawrence the 17th
and something came up today during a
private coaching session with a client
that I wanted to share with you it was
one of those moments where I said to
myself oh that’s what’s going on oh I
see okay so you have probably heard me
say or heard others say that when you’re
voicing commercials or doing any voice
work really you’re not talking to a big
group of people sure there are lots of
people listening to the radio or
watching television when your commercial
comes on but you want to make sure that
when you deliver the goods that you’re
talking to one person only and you want
to be very clear and specific about who
that person is what their job is that
you’re trying to help them with your
product or service there’s a whole a
whole process that we go through in
identifying your target audience of one
and what they need your help with so I
was walking my client through this today
and I said to who are you talking to she
was very specific and I said where are
they are they right next to you are they
across the room are they in the next
yard are they on the phone etc and she
said well they’re watching on the
television they’re listening on the
radio they’re the the in the audience
that’s hearing the commercial I’m like
ah and it all of a sudden clicked for me
what some of my clients have as
struggles with this whole idea of an
audience of one what they’re doing is
they’re taking the full audience that
they expect to see the spot on
television or here the spot on radio
that they’re a part of and they’re
trying to figure out that one person
within that big audience who they’re
talking to and that’s a mistake
rarely are you worried about narrowing
in on one part of a big audience because
that big audience is gonna be different
every time your spot runs what you’re
looking for is somebody that is
disconnected from the audience usually
disembodied but has the desire to solve
the problem to do the job that your
product or service
we’ll help them do and it became really
clear to me that sometimes we assume
that that one person that you’re talking
to is in the eventual audience that will
hear the spot or see the commercial and
I just want to steer you away from that
I want you to really hone in on putting
yourself in a unique situation you know
if you’re selling paint you know there’s
a house that needs painting and you’re
here to tell somebody about how great
the company that makes the paint is
usually it’s not gonna be somebody
watching the commercial sitting in front
of the television or in their car
listening to the radio who’s in the
process of trying to decide right then
and there what to do about this house
that they need to paint usually it’s
somebody standing in their yard or in
the driveway or in their car looking up
at the house and saying yep got to paint
the house that’s the situation that you
want to put that person in because
that’s when they need your help when
they’re watching a football game or a
television show or a movie and your
commercial comes up in the middle of
that they’re not in a position to be
thinking about painting their house you
might remind them of it but when you’re
producing the spot and you’re doing the
actual talent work of the voicing of the
spot you don’t want to make the mistake
of thinking that your audience of one is
in the eventual audience that will see
the spot they might be but what you
really want to do is raise the stakes on
that and put them in the position where
they really need your help they really
need to get a job done in this case they
want to figure out what paint to buy
what color paint to get and they would
be doing that not sitting on the couch
or in their car listening to the radio
watching television they would be doing
that when they’re about to execute the
job they need to complete this is all
part of the process of identifying the
best possibilities for who you’re
talking to in a commercial and it’s
applicable to lots of other categories
as well I hope this helps and I wonder
if this is a process that you use let me
know if this is something that’s new to
you if this is something that you’d like
to know more about we certainly talked
about that in the vo Heroes classes
mastering commercial voiceover
one-and-two it’s a big subject but let
me know what you think below this video
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for you to get on the list I’m David H
Lawrence xvii I thank you so much for
watching and I will talk to you tomorrow.