As you may know if you’ve read this blog ever, I can be somewhat obsessed with business cards.

Well as my branding recently changed slightly to be “Your Friendly, Neighbohood Voice-Over Talent” I decided I should update the business cards too.

So I did but I have come to a creative stumbling block for which your help is humbly requested and gratefully accepted (although it’s likely if I don’t pick your favorite, you’ll never speak to me again).

Everyone who has seen the front of the cards (the white side) really likes that design. So that’s staying.

But I came up with two designs for the back (both red versions) and I’m not sure which I like better (and I mean that sincerely, I do NOT have a fav, I like them both).

So please let me know from these two choices for the back of the card, which would you choose?

We will call the choices:

A. No Microphone (just red)
B. With Microphone

Thanks for your help.

Tags: advertising, logo design, marketing, silliness by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
33 Comments »

So back in June my friend and fellow voice talent Doug Turkel pinged me about Twitter’s new logo. It’s nice, simple and, I thought to myself given all the different feed services and mobile devices we all use now, maybe a tad irrelevant.

Think about it.

With no scientific data to back this up (because that requires work and this is Sunday etc.) I’ll offer my “expert” (ha!) opinion: I feel with services like HootSuite and others, most of us don’t directly and visually interact with Twitter alot. So I don’t know that we’ll see the new logo too terribly much.

That got me to thinking about MY Twitter home page. As you may or may not know, Twitter allows you to customize your home page with some branding. (Here’s a link to a video if you want to see how it’s done otherwise your graphic designer can probably help you too).

Does my (or yours or anyone’s) home page on Twitter matter any more in our world of feeds or aggregators? Well, I kinda think it does for two reasons…again my “expert” (ha!) opinion.

1. When you’re a business, people expect a certain professionalism to your work. Your design not only conveys what your business does but also it’s attitude and personality. Should someone come across your Twitter page, an impression will be formed. Do you want to risk a bad impression? Probably not but if you really don’t care, I’d also ask why you’d really want a business presence on any Social Media channel.

2. It’s a free, colorful and fun way to convey your business message. It’s so simple that even if only 10 people see it a year, to me it’s money well spent.

Oh, and just in case you are completely clueless (it will be our secret) one of Twitter’s default backgrounds on your Twitter home page is the fastest way ever to publicly communicate that in your personal life you also wear plaid shirts with checked pants.

Dress nicely if you go out in public. 😉

I would love to know your thoughts on the matter.

Tags: advertising, branding, commentary, logo design, marketing, twitter by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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If you live in New York State, you likely have heard of Darien Lake, which is the Empire State’s largest theme park. Rides, shows and some amazing concerts in addition to multiple hotels, lodges and camp sites.

Oh and a very nice water park.

It’s really quite a place so I was very pleased when I got the call to be the voice of their 2012 Season Pass campaign. It was fun and unique recording session that you’ll have to remind me to tell you about sometime. A brief hint, I was in Missouri at the time.

So in case you are out of state, here’s their nifty spot with a little voice-over boost from yours truly.

Tags: advertising, commentary, commercials, tv, video, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
1 Comment »

Why wouldn’t any business owner want the opportunity to place their brand in front of 154,748 pairs of eyes.

In essence, they are all potential customers.

It’s true that most of them might not be, depending on your business. But even when marketing to a specific market, you can’t always know who is and who is not a prospect. I believe the marketing term is “fudge factor”.

That’s especially true in voice-over.

Video producers, ad agency commercial producers, small business owners and probably about 50-75 other jobs titles make up the voice talent’s target audience. If you were to run some numbers on the cost of print, radio or on-line advertising to all of them, I’m not sure whether you’d feel more faint or nauseous but I’m pretty sure we can agree you couldn’t really afford it.

So where does the 50 cents come in?

Between the cost of a stamp, a piece of letterhead and logoed envelope, I reckon that’s the cost to mail a press release to a local newspaper touting your latest project.

And if the circulation numbers from Wikipedia are correct for my city’s local paper (and I have no idea if they are), 154,748 pairs of eyes represents the total number who will see my press release in my paper if they print it.

No, they won’t likely see the whole thing, maybe just a part of the release that an editor sees fit to print, but it will be out there.

Will all of the readers see it? Nope. How many will read it? Wanna guess with me?

Let’s say that circulation number is overblown by 50% and that actually only 77,374 people read the paper daily.

Of all those people, about 1/2 (or 38,687) read the business section where a voice over press release might get printed.

Of that, let’s say only 1/2 of them read the little press release blurb section that newspapers run (in my paper, it’s called “On The Record”).

That would mean that 19,343 and a 1/2 people in Western New York would read my press release if the Buffalo News printed it in its paper (not counting the on line version of the paper – which most cities now have).

So to get all those readers, all those pairs of eyes – none of whom I am guaranteed will be a target audience for me – I have to invest about an hour’s worth of time writing a press release, printing it and mailing it to the paper. Costing me in real hard dollars about 50 cents (ignoring my hourly fee – let’s say I did it on my lunch hour, N/C)

Will the newspaper print the press release?

YOU will never know unless you write it, print it and mail it in.

Tags: advertising, newspapers, public relations, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
4 Comments »

It has been a while since I’ve seen a new logo or revised logo worth talking about on these pages. I know many readers are voiceover-centric and not quote the logo addict I seem to have become. As addictions go, it’s not a bad one.

As many of you also know I have a soft spot in my heart for the American Red Cross and the work they do. So when I saw recently on Brand New the updated logo for the American Red Cross, I thought I’d take a second to chat it up with you.

Of course for many of a certain age, if they think about it, this is the only American Red Cross logo they’ve known and by and large, it has been pretty consistent. So a change on this puppy is noteworthy.

What I noted right off the bat were three things: the cross surrounded by the modern, shadowed button icon made popular by icons designed for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, et al; the change of the color or the word mark from black to gray and the darkened red of the Red Cross.

The button reminded me, as I said, of social media logos but also I recall (I think) seeing pins like that on people’s jackets or sweaters at the Red Cross, so I was cool with it.

The graying of the word mark seems intent on making it modern, and I get it. I think the black made it stand out more and it’s a name I don’t think should be put in the background. I believe they changed their font to this current font on their last logo change and I think they were smart not to change that in this iteration.

What I am really undecided about is the darker red. The red in the Red Cross is the ball game. I get that there needed to be shading on the red to help with the button design but it just strikes me as too dark. The vibrancy of the red is the key to the whole icon.

Overall, a nice change. But that’s my opinion…what’s yours?

Tags: advertising, branding, commentary, logo design, marketing by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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My friend and bilingual voiceover talent Liz deNesnera recently achieved one of her written goals from Faffcon 3 which was to redesign her web site and rebrand her company.

Take a look for yourself but I think she did a very nice job.

Tags: advertising, branding, marketing, social media, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
3 Comments »