Some of you may recall that in 2007, the lovely and talented Philip Banks came up with the idea of asking his friends on the VO-BB.com to recite the Christmas poem “The Night Before Christmas”.

He read the first lines and then emailed the poem to the the lovely and talented D.B. (that’s a capital “B” Facebook, dammit!) Cooper who read her lines; she emailed it to me so I would read the next part, I chose to email it to the lovely and talented Kara Edwards and on it went. Philip mixed it all with some wonderful music and it became one of my proudest voice over accomplishments ever.

So fast forward to 2009 where video is now all the rage and in spite of what I think is a logical and fair aversion to the camera, I agreed to Jeffrey Kafer’s idea to participate in a video version of the recording, again with my friends from the VO-BB.com from around the world…literally.

Please enjoy the voice talents of my friends (in order of appearance) Philip Banks, Bob Souer, Todd Ellis, Bobbin Beam, David Houston, Mr. Face for Radio himself, Bruce Miles, D.B. Cooper, Donna Postel, Michael Minetree, Mandy Nelson, Dave Courvoisier, Andrew Frame, Jeffrey Kafer, Justin Barrett, Connie Terwilliger, Pam Tierney and Tony Impieri (all of whom are both lovely and talented).

Thanks Jeffrey. Merry Christmas to all.

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

Fellow voice over talent Roy Bunales introduced me to something on his Facebook page that I thought was very interesting. It was a video that I guess has been around for over a year and has had close to 2 million views. The video is below, it’s four minutes long and I’d like you to STOP reading now watch it and then return back here for a second for a brief discussion below the video.

Let me ask you honestly…did you see that ending coming? I didn’t see it coming but on Roy’s feed, their was no title. If you were watching on TV, you wouldn’t have seen that coming either.

What a story.

Were you bothered by the length? I wasn’t at all, I was engaged, yet its payoff very much made it a commercial.

What a story.

And that’s the message for you today: story.

We went through a time and place where if an image was on a screen for a half second, that was too long. Then it couldn’t be just one image, it had to be multiple images.

Now we are an audience in throes of on-going sensory overload. We tune out advertising more than we tune in.

How, then, do you make an actual impression in the viewer or listener’s mind: story.

Share a story (not tell).

Offer a message (not promote).

Develop a relationship (don’t talk down).

Create a community (not build an audience).

It will resonate with the viewer and they will bond with the message, the product or service. I will not soon forget this brand…nor will you I think.

Not all stories are great but a great story will fill an enormous void. When was the last time your advertising or marketing shared a story? Funny or dramatic?

What’s your reaction to this? Am I being unrealistic? Or did this message find you more deeply engaged than most advertising?

P.S. So a bit after I published this, I came across the following video that I think illustrates my point even more…by helping shift the way consumers might think about a company…German engineering made “fun”.

Tags: advertising, commentary, commercials, marketing, media, video by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
3 Comments »

I love the TV jingles too (ABC, NBC and CBS promos like back in the old days ) but the radio jingles have always been my fav.

So Philip Banks (he of two mentions within the same week on this blog) linked up to a video of a company he’s evidently done work with who produce among other things radio jingles. They happened to put together a short video on the production of a recent session. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

If you have a favorite radio station jingle (or package) don’t hesitate to link to it in the comments. We are an equal opportunity fun sharing blog.

Tags: commentary, video by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
3 Comments »

I have a really odd habit of skimming over some big new product or service announcement and ignoring it until someone gives me a really understandable explanation of how the product or service really works. Rather than an “early adopter”, I’m more of an “adopt it when I get around to it” type guy.

Case in point, Google Wave is “an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.”

Maybe you can easily wrap your skull around that, but I can’t.

Now if I wanted to throw away an hour of my time I could watch this video but I don’t. I can’t be bothered because I’m a skimmer or I’m impatient…it all depends on what I’ve had for breakfast but that’s not my point.

My point is that this video here is awesome tool for learning about Google wave and likely anything else this company wants to teach me.

I don’t know who epipheo studios are but if they make stuff like this you should hire them.

Tags: animation, commentary, marketing, video by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
Comments Off on new tool, cool explaination

My thanks to the talented and generous Joe Cipriano for posting this clip from what might have been the late 70’s early 80’s LA show “2 on the Town” featuring some of that era’s best voice over talent, including the man who’s voice lured me into this business, Ernie Anderson.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

Tags: announcers, commentary, video, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
Comments Off on video of “the” voices

In 1975, graphic designer Milton Glaser created AND donated a very simple logo for a campaign he expected would last a couple of months.

The logo is still seen everywhere and has been spun off numerous times.

It is no longer a logo, it is an iconic image.

Here’s what Milton has to say about it.

Tags: advertising, commentary, logo design, marketing, video by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
Comments Off on have a heart