The Art Of Infusing Humour in Your Advertisements Through Voice Overs

When you think about Cadbury 5 Star, what comes to mind? The images, tagline and the funny catchphrase of the protagonists? That’s the power of a catchy humorous voice over.

Humorous ads are retained better in the minds of the customers and thus have become an effective marketing tool that promotes effective brand recall. The right combination of script and humour in an advertisement can help to strike a chord with the audience. Advertising humours are thoughtful techniques that businesses use to establish a brand in a memorable, entertaining way and to relay information about a service or product. Therefore global conglomerates have used them through the decades, and top brands today are building a successful brand strategy through captivating humour.

With people constantly using smartphones or distracted by conversation with others, TV advertisers have turned to humour with more frequency to catch the attention of consumers. Once the consumer is watching, the hope is that he or she enjoys the humour and remembers the product in the future. Here are few other reasons why a captivating voice over for advertising with a dash of humour can be a super important element to a successful advertising campaign.

1. Easy To Remember: Just like music, humour can grab attention easily, despite our tiny attention spans. When the brand name, slogan, or selling points are embedded with humour, it becomes easier for customers to remember the details of your brand more quickly than if you were to just dish it out in a regular commercial.
2. Grab audience’s attention: Humorous voice overs tend to be catchy and memorable. They are meant to be engaging and fun to listen to, and thus are designed to grab your audience’s attention and to keep them interested in what you have to say and offer. Without a strong, well-crafted humour, there could be a big opportunity lost. Your advert or commercial may fail to capture your audience’s attention and its main message may not be heard.
3. Create lasting impression: A memorable voice soaked with humour can embed itself deep into one’s subconscious and be remembered for a long time far beyond when one first heard it. Choosing the right script for any commercial or show is therefore important to make your marketing campaign ‘conversational’ and keep your brand image fresh in the audience’s minds for a long time!
4. Represent your brand: The ad that you decide and choose to use in all of your marketing videos and campaigns is really important because it represents you and what you stand for.  The humour in your ad can also help to highlight your brand’s personality. It can become the core essence of what you’re all about.  It is one way of letting people get to know you and get closer to you.
5. Create Marketing Consistency: Your marketing message may be slightly different in each campaign and humour provides a common thread of audio that you can tie throughout all of your video and audio marketing channels. As brands today are looking to capitalize on the power of Audio-Video Commercials for marketing campaigns, humour in advertisements help customers to mentally link all your marketing efforts together by providing a common reference point for the other ads they might have heard or seen from you in the past or on a separate platform.

As an advertising method that has stood the test of time, humour offers many advantages to marketers willing to take the plunge. Humour associates your brand with a source of information, providing a memorable way for your customers to learn more about what you have to offer. Whether your humour is something short and on point, or a little longer and more lighter, the right humour can make a world of difference in your advertising and marketing strategy.

How to Add Impactful Humour In Your Ad

With TV commercials, videos on every platform to audios on most digital ads, there’s endless options for marketing, promoting, and crafting a brand identity through catchy humour. It is an easy way to convey short snippets of information and embed them deep into your audience’s memory. So what does it take to find success in the craft of humour and how can you create your own for brand promotion?

1. Write an effective script: Creating a humorous ad requires a strong foundation and an impactful script. It’s advisable to first list down information in points on what you wish to convey to your audience. The script should have the following attributes to make it memorable:
   1. Know your audience: Like all marketing strategies, it is important to know your audience! If you are aiming to create a global ad, your language should be inclusive of a wider demographic. If, however, you are planning to target a certain section of the audience, look for native trending words and the right voice over accent that might resonate with them. Clear description has the power of maximum attraction. Thus, cluttering of numerous words should be avoided. This step will eventually help you to choose professional dubbing services in India and select the right voice artist for your brand.
   2. Use humorous and simple language: The script must have punching taglines in short, straight and simple language so that it can nail directly onto the nerves of the targeted listeners since the professional voice over artist has only one option of persuasion, i.e. voice. A good trick for a catchy ad would be to include words that are simple to rhyme and easy to remember. Repeat some important words and phrases to make them memorable. Use short and easily enunciated words. Also always remember to include your brand’s name as means of an effective recall. It’s important especially if you are still trying to establish a new brand.
   3. Keep Your Message Relevant to Your Brand and Products: If you are into corporate, you must approach funny angles that relate to your brand/products/services. Of course, your content or ads shouldn’t be entirely related to your offers but should contain at least several significant links that’ll allow people to figure out the connections on their own!
   4. Keep It Simple: A marketing campaign that aims to be funny shouldn’t be complicated or long. It should be simple, concise. Triggering a strong feeling is just enough for a humorous campaign to bring benefits, so keeping your ideas simple, realistic, and simple-to-implement will give you the chance to gain the necessary validation without involving too much budget, time, and attention to a single campaign.
2. Record a professional voice over: Now that you have analyzed your audience and written a terrific script, you need to focus on quality voice overs that can enliven your script. Recording your entire voice over from scratch in-house can be quite an investment. You require to set up your own home studio and invest in the right equipment for clear and professional recordings. Hence, it is always recommended to hire a veteran talent who can do justice to your brand image and bring out the nuances of your creations.
   Ad voices are natural, engaging, persuasive and conversational and the voice artist you hire should be able to connect with your script and understand the message you’re trying to portray. Voice overs require technical vocal skills and years of training, hence a seasoned voice artist is required who can visualize your concept and deliver it for the audience through their voice. While hiring the professional voice artist/actor, remember to put careful consideration into your desired voice tone, accent, and style of delivery. Try to select a voice actor whose vocal style identifies with your brand image and mirrors your target audience’s preferences. Although a professional voice talent will be able to deliver you quality voice over recordings without much instructions, don't be afraid to redirect the artist, or ask for different approaches. When hiring a professional voice artists you must consider the following qualities that will help you to enhance your brand image and strengthen your brand identity: 
   1. Technical skills: Select the artist who understands the context and intent behind doing the recording. The experienced voice actor should have the right tone and consistency and a clear pronunciation of every word and sentence. The audio must have a high clarity for the customers to understand the message clearly and the pacing should be maintained throughout the script.
   2. Creativity skills: Other aspects to look at when evaluating a voice actor’s demo relate to creativity and professionalism. You may want to convey different emotions and need a voice actor who can narrate both engagingly and convincingly. Consider pronunciation, clarity, pacing, pitch, and accent as crucial factors that contribute to believability. Your target audience must relate not only to what is being said, but also to who is saying it.
   3. Interpretative skills: Absolutely essential to an advertisement’s success is the ability of the professional voice over artist to understand the brief, the target audience and the objective of the campaign. They will need to have the versatility, creativity and talent to bring the right spark into their voice. Understanding the experience of a voice over artist to see how many roles and types of work they’ve undertaken, can ensure that they have the capability to deliver your project with the highest quality possible.

Professional voice talents have the actual skills that allow your audience to focus on your message, in turn making any audio/video project a success. A professional voice over actor can help to make your ad project shine, and reach a wider audience and can make a real difference to the effectiveness of your advertising video. You can easily find seasoned and skilled voice actors in English or any other language through Voyzapp at a cost-effective rate. Being the top voice over company in India, Voyzapp assures that the advertisements are professionally recorded according to your detailed requirements, with crystal clear acoustics and a great voice.

Your success with humour depends on the risks you’re willing to make, the boldness you’re willing to allow, the creativity and the quality of your voice over– take the time to make sure that your advertisement incorporates all of these things.

Related blogs:

How Online Video Advertising Trends Have Enhanced The Need Of Professional Voice Overs

Cater your Elearning content to a global audience through professional voice overs

Tune Into Your Marketing Campaigns Through The Magic Of Audio Branding