Another great night in Rochester, NY for 6th Annual RAF Freelance Creative Expo, held at the Memorial Art Gallery Ballroom.

While only about 90 minutes away from me I don’t spend enough time with clients in the area so this is a nice time to catch up with some old friends and make new ones. In fact my thanks to Ken from Studio 2B for shooting the pic of me at the booth.

Lots of great leads to follow up on. My thanks to everyone who visited my table at the expo.

Tags: advertising, audio'connell voice over talent, commentary, marketing by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
2 Comments »

There is occasionally downtime in the voice over world of audio’connell Voice Over Talent. While I should say that I am always marketing or developing new business when the mic isn’t on, well, that’s not always true.

Sometimes I surf. And not on water.

But a recent surfing expedition (which really was a key word search on Google) led me to a 1997 interview on a “Lost In Space” website with a fairly well known announcer by the name of Dick Tufeld. Dick was the voice of “The Robot” in the series “Lost In Space” and reprised his role when the movie came out. (And, if you like, there seems to be another interview with Dick here).

Dick’s career has spanned a great deal more than just “Lost In Space”. I remember him as a long time announcer of the Grammy’s among other shows (his signoff that I remember was “This is Dick Tufeld speaking”). I can’t find too much present day information on him to know if at 82 he’s still working, other than some somewhat suspect web sites that I cannot confirm as credible.

But what I loved though, from the 1997 interview, was this quote, telling a story that almost every professional voice talent can relate to and laaaughh!

Q: How did you get the voice job of the Robot?
Dick Tufeld: When I was 18 years old, I was working one summer at KLCA-LA radio, and I used to announce shows and do station breaks, etc. There was a literary agent named Irwin Allen, who must have been, I’m guessing, 35 years old at the time, who would walk in and nod to me, and I’d nod to him — I was just a kid at the time. He had a Hollywood gossip show, and I’d spin the theme music for it and announce him, for 15 minutes once a week. Then he’d leave and nod to me, and I’d nod to him. That was the extent of our conversation.

Twenty years go by, and he was walking out of the commissary at 20th Century Fox and there was a guy named Emmett Labry, Jr. who was in the business affairs department. Irwin ran into Emmett and said that he had a new series going on air in a few weeks. “We need a narrator and is there anybody you can think of?’ Emmett was a friend of mine, and said “How about Dick Tufeld?”

In one of the most astonishing statements I’ve heard repeated to me, Irwin turned to Emmett and said “Dick Tufeld, my oldest and dearest friend — great idea!” Which I think is pretty funny. Irwin contacted my agent, and they got an audio tape of my voice doing some narration. Irwin liked it and I became the narrator of the show.

About two weeks later I got a call from Irwin’s office asking me to read for a robot character. So I go in there, and think this is good. He hands me some copy, and I say “Irwin, I presume what you are looking for a mechanical, robot-ian kind of robot sound.” He looks at me and says “My dear boy, that is precisely what I do not want. This is a very highly advanced culture in the year 1997.” Of course that seemed to be very far away to everybody [chuckle]. “I want a cultured low- key voice, (I would equate this with the voice of computer Hal in “2001”), an Alexander Scourby” — the wonderful NY actor and narrator voice who has passed on – and he said “that’s what I’m looking for.”

So I started reading for Irwin with my best Scourby imitation, and I’m not coloring the words and I’m doing an unemotional read and I’m saying “Warning that does not compute.” He says no, that’s not it, and I do it again, and then he says no, that’s not it, and I try something else and that’s not it. All this time I’m trying to do my best Alexander Scourby imitation. And he finally says to me, after about 10 minutes, “Well Dick, I appreciate you coming in. To be honest with you, you’re not getting this, so I have to look further for this. But you’re still the narrator on this show.” And I say to Irwin, “Thank you very much.”

I take my reading glasses off and start packing up my attaché case. And God knows why I even did this. I say to Irwin, “Let me try one more thing for you just before I go.” And now I read the line in my best mechanical, robot-ian kind of way and I say “Warning that does not compute.”

And he says “Jesus Christ, that’s the Alexander Scourby approach I was looking for, what the hell took you so long?” Honestly, I had to literally turn away from him, so as not to laugh in his face, because I was so convulsed.

It was the classic example of what people say they want, and what they are actually looking for. They are two different things. In a sense I was *very* fortunate to become the voice of the Robot, because if I had not said “let me try one more thing” as I was walking out obviously I would never have been the voice of the Robot. It was a kind of a fluke the way it happened.

That IS a classic and oddly timeless truth that makes me smile, knowing the challenges of today in voice over aren’t actually that different from those great talents who paved the way for us.

Thanks Dick. Love your voice, love your humor!

Tags: announcers, audio'connell voice over talent, character voices, commentary, marketing, tv, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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It is not new technology per se but because it’s being executed now in beta by Google Labs, Google’s introduction of a new service that will catalog all the words uttered from a posted an audio or video clip is news. It’s a game changer.

A company with billions of dollars and oodles of clout can do that.

This new audio indexing service directly impacts the businesses of voice over, marketing and advertising (and, well, actually every business that uses the web) in a monumental way.

Of course I’ll tell you why. 😉

A company’s success or failure on the web can be attributed, in my opinion, to one primary element: words. How a company manages and places its words on the web, whether it be in text, header bars, and ad words etc. creates results and rankings in search engines like Google that can mean success or failure.

Do you think companies interested in buying your product or service are going to sift through 10 pages on Google to find your 100th ranked search results after they have find what they need in the first two or three pages on Google? The odds are very low.

Using words correctly on a web site, key words particularly, is both an art and a science. But our audio and video clips haven’t had much of an impact on SEO save for maybe a tag here or there. But Google is ratcheting up the game of tag now.

If Gaudi (a bit like audi-o’connell don’t you think?) will catalog words on audio and video clips on your site…the SEO possibilities seem quite enormous. Posted commercials maybe written entirely for the web to enhance optimization. Audio demos that have brand names featured in copy might then have that brand more closely associated with a voice talent. The web becomes a more valuable tool with the automatic transcription of sound into words.

Possibilities = endless.

Want to know what else occurred to me, just for a nano second while ruminating around all these possible changes?

Because of all the words that will eventually be added to search as a result of Gaudi, what it becomes too much for the Google algorithms used as the basis of its current search platform? Or what if they determine that words are not the best element upon which to base their optimization tools? What if they are working on that completely new search engine model right now that will force all of us to totally revise our web strategies?

Wrap your head around that for a minute, won’t you? Don’t worry, the panicky feeling goes away eventually.

Tags: advertising, commentary, google, marketing, search engine marketing, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
2 Comments »

As this blog is “where the worlds of voice over, marketing and advertising collide” I try and make sure individual posts cover one or more of those areas each week. This post covers all three.

If you earn your living as a voice talent, a marketer (for your own company or on behalf of someone else) or in advertising (either for yourself or someone else) there is a trend developing that you need to think about. Why?

Because it affects how much money you’re going to make in the future. Think mortgage payments, new cars and education.

With me now?

Double click on the chart below and then click back for some thoughts.

That chart is part of a much more in-depth study produced in August, 2008 by the Pew Research Center for People and The Press. Maybe its stuff you thought was happening and maybe it even reflects your personal changes. But this is now quantifiable. And that means a lot to how we all make our livings. Pay attention:

You have just read a 15 year trend in media usage, specifically how people get their news.
* 24% fewer people in that time period get their news from newspapers
* 12% fewer people get their news from the radio
* 31% fewer people watch the nightly network news
* On line and cable news consumption is through the roof

This is about more than just news, I think. This is a game changer for people who work in media (including voice over), marketing and advertising. Most are dealing with this and thousands of pages of similar data already but I’m guessing you may not be, so let us ruminate for a moment, shall we?

Let’s just for the sake of this post take out concerns of the bias of cable news outlets as it affects their presentation of the news to the growing majority of American cable news consumers and how that impacts how people think, act and vote about issues of the day. Great topic and just considering it gets your head to throbbing but back away from it just for this discussion.

Let’s do say you’re a voice talent and you’ve been charging $200 for a :30 second commercial on local broadcast television and $150 or even $100 for cable TV spots because there are fewer viewers. Survey says that number is changing a bit (though broadcast ratings are still higher). Should you consider changing your cable fees? Is that change justified? Survey says maybe.

Let’s say you’re in advertising and you’ve been specializing in print ads which mostly go in newspapers or you’ve been doing lots of radio spots on news talk stations. Shouldn’t you at least reconsider either your primary business services or your media recommendation to clients? Survey says it’s probably worth some brainstorming.

Let’s say you’re in marketing for a grocery store and you do weekly inserts with specials and temporary price reductions and the like. Has coupon redemption gone up or down on those inserts? Any reasons you know of for a change? Survey says maybe.

Let’s say you are a consumer that can be influenced by commercials you see on cable TV, print ads or weekly grocery store inserts (we’d all like to say “not me” but we’d be lying). Could your buying habits be impacted by this change in media usage? After all, you’re the one changing the usage. What if you’re not finding out about all these new special offers because the media vendors haven’t changed their marketing plans for their clients? Clients whose products you normally buy or would consider buying.

The point is not that any of these industries need to play catch up because that’s what we’re all doing everyday anyway. A trend arises and we react. Tuesday go left. Wednesday go right. Thursday is too far away to consider.

The point is to be aware that there are very specific changes in media usage. This information is but one small part.

But do you comprehend the change? Do you even feel it, maybe? Is the change impacting the way you do business? Should it change the way you do business?

Is it impacting the way you buy things? Does it alter your opinion of brands? Could it alter the opinions of consumers of your brand?

That box below here is where the discussion begins…be a part of it, now. Thanks.

Tags: advertising, commentary, commercials, internet, marketing, media, radio, technology, tv, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
9 Comments »

OK, not to criticize the founders of Blog Day 2008 but I only found out about it today by reading another blog. And picking the Sunday of Labor Day weekend would not have been my first choice from a publicity perspective.

OK I guess I did criticize but I’m done now being Mr. Cranky Pants.

So the concept is thus:

BlogDay was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. On that day Bloggers will recommend other blogs to their blog visitors.
With the goal in mind, on this day every blogger will post a recommendation of 5 new blogs. This way, all blog readers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, previously unknown blogs.

So here are 5 blogs (in no special order) that I would recommend you check out from my personal RSS list of over 150 blogs on my Google Reader about voiceover, marketing, advertising, broadcasting and other crap (woe to you who should think all those categories fall under “crap”).

1. Trafcom News I can’t articulate to you how bright and talented I think Donna Pappacosta is personally but trust me when I say she is and when you want some generally interesting insight into print, new media (great podcasting stuff) and face-to-face communications, this blog from her business, Trafalgar Communications, is a worthy read.

2. The Daily Nightly this is the blog of NBC Nightly News anchor and managing editor Brian Williams who I first noticed as a top notch talk show host guest on late night talk shows. Bright, articulate and yet still knowledgeable about world and domestic issues. His writing style is something I appreciate and his content is insightful. Other NBC News folks contribute but Brian’s posts are the ones I most like to read.

3. NewscastStudio Blog Well, to enjoy this blog you have to be an admitted behind the scenes of broadcast news geek like me who loves reading about new news sets and graphics and promotion of news (local and national). You get to see the creation of sets (before and after) of stations and networks around the country. The only salvation in my public revelation of this (my) particular geeky trait is that if there is a blog about this, I can’t be the only geek around.

4. Copyblogger To quote its author Brian Clark: “What’s the missing ingredient that prevents most people from succeeding online? Copywriting skills. Content drives the Internet, and using the right words in the right way will determine not only how well your site converts visitors into sales, but also how well you rank in search engines and how many links you get.” Exactly. Every little thing he writes about will not directly pertain to your internet or marketing strategies but enough of it will to make it a read worth your time and subscription.

5. Brand New – It’s pretty evident to anyone who knows me I’m kind of a logo design slut. The creative, the methodology, the evolution and the final product is something I find very fun. And the fact that there is usually millions of someone else’s dollars riding on its success just adds to my fun. It’s logos before and after with some often funny critiques along the way.

A final note- you’ll notice not one voice over blog on my list. You’ll also notice a plethora of links in column on the right of this post to darn near every voice over blog that I am aware of…a list that’s posted 24/7/365; not just on August 31st.

Enjoy the reads.

Tags: blogs, commentary, logo design, marketing, marketing podcast, NBC News, podcasting, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
2 Comments »

As every business owner in voice over, marketing or advertising has either used public relations for their benefit or their clients’ benefit or has been on the receiving end of a PR campaign at some level, I thought you’d find the recent experience of Michael Arrington of Tech Crunch interesting.

He received this email very recently:

From: Vanity Fair / Google
Date: August 27, 2008 9:06:32 PM PDT
To: Michael Arrington
Subject: IMPT: Google/Vanity Party Status
Reply-To: demconventionparty@google.com
Thank you for your interest in the Vanity Fair / Google Party.

We have reached full capacity for this event and are unable to accommodate additional guests.

If you have NOT received a Confirmation email–separate from the automated RSVP response– and a Party admission card with your name on it, you will not be admitted to the party. No exceptions.

If you HAVE received a confirmation email but have NOT picked up your admission card, you must reference your confirmation instructions and pick up your card by 4:00pm on Thursday. Admission cards will not be distributed at the door.

If you use the shuttle service you must have your party admission card to board. No exceptions.

Thank you in advance for your understanding,

Vanity Fair & Google Events team

Sad news for Michael, had he been wrangling an invitation or had he even been aware of the event. He had neither nor was he the lone perplexed recipient of that email.

But he did write about it….and so am I.

I’ll let you draw your own correlations between a publication the likes of Vanity Fair, celebrities and politicians (and please post them here as I know they’d make great reading).

My questions (which I also hope you’ll daine to answer) are the following: is any publicity really good publicity as the old axiom goes? As long as they spell my name right?

Maybe the publicity trick fits Vanity Fair’s branding but does it fit Google’s? Obviously the message is exclusivity but is it also awareness? Would you be willing to pull such a stunt (and make no mistake, this is a stunt) with your brand? Why?

Please open your blue book and use only your No. 2 pencil to write your essay answer. You have one hour.

Begin 😉

Tags: advertising, commentary, google, marketing, media, public relations, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
2 Comments »