If voiceover talents are honest with themselves, we really aren’t as good as we should be about keep our stores clean, fresh and repainted.

As voiceover talents will tell you, our “stores” are our websites, the heart of our voiceover businesses.

What do we miss?

We forget to update information (outside of voiceover demos, which we are “pretty good” about updating), we forget to update SEO information and stories and/or changing out graphics and on and on. We just get lazy.

Then we voiceover business owners get hit with an idea (like a 2′ x 4′ across the back of our heads) about fixing something on the website and we’re off to the races.

And FYI…alot of the stuff we change is stuff many folks would never ever notice or likely even care about…because you’re living your life, not ours.

I’m writing this on Sunday afternoon (first non-football Sunday of the year) but my idea for voiceover website renovation struck me on Friday.

I was talking with my web developer then about an a new idea I had (more on that in weeks to come…tee hee) when I noticed something, when looking at one of my demo pages.

From 2016 to 2022, my logo featured a handwritten font with my tagline “Your Friendly, Neighborhood Voiceover Talent” in a Segoe font.

I created a brain fart of logo in 2023 quickly shifting to my current logo at the start of 2024.

But that Segoe tagline font (2016-2023) was the font I used for my 2020-designed voiceover demo page banners.

So what I noticed Friday was that I had NOT updated my voiceover demo page banners to include the new, correct font from my 2024 logo.

EEEK! ARRRGHH! ZOINKS!! Marketing disaster! (Not really).

And I know you don’t care but this is MY story so just read. It’s a blog for goodness sake. 🙂

So this weekend, I set about redesigning (renovating) all the voiceover demo page logo bars for my website:

I wanted to keep the same general design, fix the “Your Friendly, Neighborhood Voiceover Talent” font and then freshen up the font and color design. You can see ALL of the new voiceover demo banners below.

The last page I fixed was my Political Demo page.

While I was looking at that page, I got to thinking that I probably had not been as clear to the political consultants and political commercial producers who visit my Political Commercial demo page about what spots I will do and will not do.

As I have long stated, while I hold no political party affiliation, I will only voice for candidates or political action committees who support the Pro-Life platform.

In an effort to respect the time of those (from any party) looking for a political voice talent, they need to know that about me right away and adjust their attention as needed.

So I decided I need to create a graphic that highlighted my rule that would sit at the top of the page. That has now been added.

There are a couple of other things I may need to add with the web developer’s help but I feel this was a very productive weekend voiceover project that didn’t require any visits to Lowes or Home Depot.

Well done me. 🙂

THE 2020 vs. 2025 BANNER COMPARISON….                                                     

CHARACTER VOICES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

COMMERCIALS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

E-LEARNING

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EXPLAINER VIDEOS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIVE ANNOUNCER

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MESSAGE ON-HOLD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NARRATION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POLITICAL COMMERCIAL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RADIO IMAGING

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TV PROMO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: blogs, branding, marketing, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover blog // Comments Off on A weekend of voiceover website renovation at peterkoconnell.com

Over the holiday, someone asked me how long I’ve done live announcing and emceeing.

I had to think about it for a second and I still did not immediately have an answer.

I started in professional radio in 1982 but for live announcing and emceeing, I didn’t have such a concrete date. I remember live events but not dates.

But I found a picture on line from the University of Dayton 1984 yearbook where I hosted a WDCR-AM (campus radio station) promotion called The Dating Game in the Kennedy Center Theatre.

The little I remember from the event was that Lisa Curie Boggs was backstage with me, John Luttrell did the intro and if it was a DCR promotion at that time, Ron Alexander had to be involved.

So if not first semester of 1983, it has been since 1984 that I have been emceeing and doing live announcing.

Now, knowing the answer to the question, I hope you can all sleep better tonight.

Tags: emcee, live announcing // Comments Off on Emceeing and Live Announcing Since 1984

 

Merry Christmas.

I hope 2025 brings you good things.

Tags: audio'connell voice over talent, peter o'connell // Comments Off on Merry Christmas 2024

I know my voiceover business is not considered a retail establishment.

Further, I am aware that Small Business Saturday is a promotion focused on local retail establishments like clothing stores, restaurants etc that are not regional or national retail chains (think Target, Wal-Mart or Dick’s Sporting Goods).

So why am I weighing in to support Small Business Saturday?

Because I am a small business.

I am even considered a micro-business (small equals 9 employees or less — I fall 8 short of that max).

I serve my local community as well as national and international clients.

So I have skin in this game.

But to be fair, there are hundreds of thousands more small business who have even MORE skin in the game than me (more employees, separate offices, retail spaces etc).

Small Business Saturday is for them, it’s for me and for all of us (micro & small alike).

The ask of you (as the consumer) is simple: “think local” before you buy.

“Buy local” when you buy.

When you are ready to buy, step back from the .com and mega stores that we all have shopped at and look for the local stores that could sell you the same thing.

While there could be a cost difference…remember when you buy local, you’re basically buying from your NEIGHBOR.

Yes, mega stores employee your neighbors too (and pay taxes too) but when you buy local, more money stays local.

So tomorrow (11/30/24), for your holiday shopping and all year long, “think local” before you buy and “buy local” when you buy.

And if you need voiceover for a commercial, narration, broadcast promo or even live announce, please hire *THIS* small business owner.

Thanks.

 

Tags: small business saturday // Comments Off on Small Business Saturday – It DOES Matter

It was NOT on my voiceover radar as I walked into the WoVOCon Voiceover Unconference 2024 ( #wovocon2024 ).

Sure, I’d thought about marketing my live announcing and emcee work in the past — but I got distracted by other shiny voiceover objects and never really focused on it.

Even serving AS the Emcee of wovocon2024, I wasn’t thinking about marketing those very services – because I had a show to execute!!

But as I *wasn’t* thinking about my talents in that area and as I was not planning for promoting them…it happened.

Right in the middle of WoVOCon 2024.

As Emcee and from the podium, I was talking about some of the questions / help people were posting about during WoVOCon. I improvisationally mentioned (from what must have been the far corner of my subconscious marketing brain) that if anyone had any ideas or could help me focus on my live announcing and emcee work, that would be great.

I believe I brought it up as an example to help those the audience to understand what questions could be asked of their fellow WoVOCon’ers and to also let people know (and feel more comfortable) that everybody can use help in their VO careers, even the old guys (that would be me).

That was it. I didn’t think too much more about it after I said it and WoVOCon ended.

Except it didn’t end.

I had forgotten about my Live Announcing mention at WoVOCon and was focused on other stuff from the conference. But about a week after I got home, I got an email from my friend and fellow voice talent DEBBIE IRWIN.

Her email, titled “Live Announcing” said “I heard your request for help in this arena… I don’t have a magic wand, but I do have a few ideas and am happy to bounce them around with you.”

We were on the phone the next day…plenty of good and generous ideas from Debbie, many insights and more than a few live announcing war stories….all which led to me getting off my butt. Within the next week and a half, I’d producing a sparkly new (Debbie-approved) Voice of God – Live Announcing voiceover demo.

Marketing is underway and will continue for sometime.

A demo. A marketing plan. Execution.

All 3 came from my WoVOCon 2024 experience in Chicago. A very unique experience meant to build and inspire the business and creative actions of professional voice actors via other professional voice actors.

Mission accomplished.

Tags: commentary, Demos, live announcing, voice of God, WOVOCON // Comments Off on A strong example of how WoVOCon helps voiceover careers

RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA – November 4, 2024 – – Peter K. O’Connell, America’s Friendly, Neighborhood Voiceover Talent, has released a new voiceover demo featuring examples of his live event announcing for awards shows, corporate sales meeting and charity fundraising events.

LISTEN TO PETER K. O’CONNELL’S VOICE OF GOD – LIVE ANNOUNCER DEMO BELOW:

O’Connell’s off stage, live announcing and pre-recorded announcing work has been heard at events across America and as far away as Korea. This type of announcing work is commonly called the “voice of God” by event industry producers and planners.

In addition to live announcing, O’Connell is also in demand as an on-stage event Emcee or Host at similar live events including awards shows, charity galas and corporate sales meetings.

About Peter K. O’Connell

Voice actor Peter K. O’Connell has shared his voiceover, live announcer (voice of God) and audio production skills with companies around the world.

In addition to his work as a Live Announcer and Emcee for events, Peter’s commercial, narration & web clients include brands like Disney Cruise Line, Tic Tac Mints, iHeart Media, Crest Toothpaste, IBM, SXM Media and AWS.

O’Connell’s company, audio’connell Voiceover Talent, is a Source-Connect equipped voiceover studio that is a division of O’Connell Communications, LLC.

– 30 –

NOTES FOR EDITORS

CONTACT:

Peter K. O’Connell Your Friendly, Neighborhood Voiceover Talent

audio’connell Voiceover Talent

P.O. Box 5493 | Raleigh, NC 27512-5493

PH. +01 716-572-1800 & +01 919-283-1516

EM. peter@audioconnell.com

W. audioconnell.com

SOURCE-CONNECT: @audioconnell

COMPANY MEDIA CENTER:

http://www.audioconnell.com/media

PETER K. O’CONNELL VO CREDITS:

VO Credits Link

COMPANY NAME SPELLING:

Use lower case letters- audio’connell or audio’connell Voiceover Talent

COMPANY NAME PRONUNCIATION:

au·di-o’·con·nell (awe-de-oh-kah-nel)

Tags: announcers, Demos, media releases, voice of God // Comments Off on MEDIA RELEASE – O’Connell Releases Updated Voice of God – Live Announcer Demo