Voice Coaches Blog

This week, we have three new ads that don’t so much have a common theme as a common style: the voice over guy! We’ll start with the Mother’s Day themed ad, since that holiday was last weekend. The first ad (above) from Mr. Clean is from that classic loud, semi-announcer-y school of delivery, but it’s [...]

Apparently, it’s the 60th anniversary of one of the world’s most famous toys, Mr. Potato Head. Not only that, but according to Hasbro, Mr. Potato Head was also the first toy ever to be marketed in a television commercial. I checked out said commercial, and — what do you know? — it’s almost completely driven [...]

In today’s Voice Overs of the World, we have a couple of new commercials that celebrate manliness. Advertisers love to aim their ads at specific demographics, and the male and female demographics are always highly specialized. These ads are clearly geared right towards men, and the voice overs are a big part of that! The [...]

This week’s blog is all about Google! The pioneering search engine company has two brand new commercials/videos out that both expertly utilize voice over (although in completely different ways) to create interesting spots.

There’s been a popular tradition in the advertising world for the past few years of creating fake advertisements for outlandish products (that seem real) and releasing them to the internet at large on April Fool’s Day (which, of course, was yesterday.) Google and YouTube have made many of these vidoes over the past few years, [...]

You’ve gotta hand it to NASA. They don’t really do a lot of advertising, but when they do, they knock it out of the park. This newest advertisement from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration combines some amazing footage with a terrific script voiced by none other than Optimus Prime himself, Peter Cullen.

Ted Williams — The Man With the Golden Voice, is back! Just a few weeks ago, we reported on Williams and where he is today after he went from being homeless to being internet famous last year. Well, now Kraft has him in a new commercial that ran for a limited time, only this time, he’s appearing on camera to talk about using his voice! Confused? Watch the video and all will be explained.

We’ve focused on Voice Overs from all over the world here in Voice Overs of the World, from the United States to Great Britain to South America and many places in between. But I think this might be the first time we’ve focused on voice overs from our neighbors to the North, the great country of Canada.

Well, the Super Bowl has finally come and gone. As always, besides a great game, though, there were the debuts of over 50 brand new commercials. So, as has become an annual tradition here at the Voice Overs of the World, we’ve selected a few of our favorite VO-driven spots to share with you here.

Sometimes these blogs just write themselves! Some of you may remember the Geico commercial that came out last year that answered the question “Did the little piggy cry wee wee wee all the way home?” If not, I’ve included it below for your reference.

Well, if there’s one thing we love around here at the Voice Coaches Blog, it’s talking animals. Well, all right, that’s an oversimplification. To be clear, we love to see the great voice overs that ads using talking animals almost always bring around.

Well, Thanksgiving week is upon us, so this week’s blog entry is a little earlier than usual. As always, we wanted to take a minute to wish all of you out there a very safe, happy, and healthy Thanksgiving from everyone here at Voice Coaches! And while usually I don’t combine our holiday blog posts with our Voice Overs of the World column, this year State Farm has released an internet video about turkey fryer safety starring none other than William Shatner!

Or friends at Tom Tom are at it again. We’ve already written about them twice here at Voice Overs of the World, when they brought the option to have Star Wars characters voice your GPS directions to the world at large. They produced some pretty hilarious commercials starring Yoda and Darth Vader for those launches, and now they have a great new spot for their new line of Sesame Street GPS voices.

There’s a lot of advertising being done these days that’s never seen on television, and below are two great examples of that. These ads are only viewable online, and both of them originate in other countries and heavily feature animals. (Ok, it’s a bit of a stretch, but it’s the only connecting theme I could think of today!)

In researching examples for Voice Overs of the World, I’ve come across a cool new trend that’s adding up to a lot of work for voice actors: internet tutorials about mobile apps. Here are three spots that show what I’m talking about.

Reading lists can be one of the more challenging tasks in voice overs, because you have to deliver variety in order to keep a piece from sounding boring. But how do you read the same thing 10 times and make each one sound different? Well, this commercial gives you an idea of how to do just that.

Well, football season is upon us again, which means yet another new version of the popular EA Sports video game franchise, Madden 2012. This time around, the company has Ben Affleck lending his voice to a collection of incredibly well done and humorous commercials. (They’re doubly humorous if you’ve ever played Madden.)

Food and nutrition are big money items in the world of advertising, and more often than not, that equals jobs for working voice actors. Here are three food/health related ads we’ve found recently that feature prominent use of voice over.

Every so often, whilst digging up commercials with great voice overs for Voice Overs of the World, I come across some ads that don’t easily fit into any categories; they’re just a bit odd. Today I’ve collected a few of the more unusual or creative ads that feature great voice over work that I’ve stumbled upon lately.

Sesame Street has not only been a staple of children’s television for decades, but it’s also given us some indelible voice over performances over the years. As the variety of outlets for media properties continues to grow, so too does Sesame Street’s reach in the world. Here are a couple of great new commercials that feature some classic voice overs.

What I like about this ad is that the voice talent doesn’t drastically alter his voice, but through a subtle shift in delivery and style, his whole attitude is transformed. Here, instead of being reverent and thoughtful, he’s a lot more cocky and even a little boastful.

Technology and video games tend to go hand in hand with voice overs. What better way to explain what a new computer or gadget does than by showing it at work with a handy voice over to spotlight the coolest features? A lot of times, though, tech and video games rely on an overexcited or sarcastic tone to their voice overs. Here, we found a couple of ads where the producers chose to go for a more upscale approach instead!

Here in the U.S, we’re not too familiar with Orange, but in Europe they’re a telecom giant. They also do some great advertising, some of which I’ve mentioned in this column in the past. This summer, they’re doing a really interesting thing utilizing social media phenomenon Twitter and a professional voice over artist.

The Muppets are returning to the big screen this Fall in an all new movie starring Jason Segel and Amy Adams, and all of us here at Voice Coaches couldn’t be more excited. Why? Well, because of all the great Voice Over work that it’s sure to be filled with, of course! In the meantime, though, check out the clever use of narration in this new teaser trailer for the film, which pretends to be for a bland romantic comedy before revealing its true self.

These two ads both incorporate multiple voice actors into their short running times. Each one features multiple voice actors performing a single line or two out of an entire script full of dialogue. I think the result is pretty effective.

In honor of the wedding of Prince WIlliam and Kate Middleton, we thought we’d give our blog today a British flair! (Yes, even we’re caught up in the hoopla!) So we found two great new ad campaigns that feature British voice over actors.

Here is a recent advertisement that makes nice use of the quieter, breathy tone that can also be extremely effective and attention getting.

With all the hubbub recently about the iPad 2 from Apple, it took the tech giant a few weeks to put out an actual TV commercial. Now that they’ve gone ahead and produced their first commercial for the hot tech device, guess what? It’s driven by a voice over! (Of course!) So check out the latest Apple ad and a few other technology-driven spots that prominently feature VO work.

I love lottery commercials. I find them to be an endless source of entertainment and humor, and more often than not, you can find some really good examples of voice overs in them. Here are a few ads I’ve recently discovered:

Mr. Peanut has gone without a voice since his debut as a company mascot in 1916; that’s almost a hundred years! And now, Kraft Foods and Planters has created a new ad campaign around the mercurial peanut star, with none other than Robert Downey Jr. providing the voice!

The Super Bowl is known as much for its commercials as it is for the football game itself, and every year, we here at the Voice Coaches Blog bring you the most in-depth post-game analysis of not the game, but the commercials. Specifically, we take a look at the most memorable commercials of the game to predominantly feature voice overs. So while some of the Bud Light or Doritos ads might have been funnier or more clever, the ads we’ve chosen spotlight the best use of voice overs we saw last night.

It’s no secret that video games these days are filled to the brim with voice overs, but what about advertising for those video games? Well, it turns out that they like to use a good amount of voice over as well. Here are three recent ads for various games that caught my eye (or, more [...]

Sometimes these blog entries just write themselves for me. This week, not one, but TWO different new commercial spots debuted that used great literary works as their inspiration! So buckle up, and journey into the world of literary voice overs with me! First up, we have a new commercial from Nike, promoting its devotion to [...]

Here are two pieces I’ve stumbled across lately that feature not only terrific voice over performances, but also some truly great and creative concepts.

What goes better with some great voice overs than a little snack? Apparently not much, because the food advertising world is alive and well with some terrific voice overs in their ads. Here are three particularly creative and well-put-together new ads we’ve found with some terrific VO work in them. The first ad (above) is [...]

Electronics retailer Best Buy has launched a new ad campaign for the holidays that uses computer animation to bring to life Santa’s elves and a special elf dressed in blue and yellow. The best part about computer generated characters? They all need voice overs, of course!

One of the things we talk about a lot here at Voice Coaches is how the internet has really helped the voice over field explode. So today, in Voice Overs of the World, we found three cool videos that all showcase the amount of voice over work that comes directly from the internet.

You’ve got to love technology. Not only does it allow us to record voice overs from across the world and make editing much easier than it used to be, but once in a while, it’s also the subject of a cool voice over. In today’s Voice Overs of the World, we’ve found two recent advertisements [...]

McDonald’s, in a saavy marketing move, has released an animated commercial that celebrates this year’s nationwide return — and the legend — of the McRib, and it features some pretty great voice over work to boot.

I like these new ads from MSNBC; they’re inspirational, patriotic, and thought-provoking, all while remaining positive. And they feature some great VO work to boot!

There have been about a million parody videos of the Old Spice “Man Your Man Could Smell Like” commercial, but this newest one features some impressive VO work from one of the masters in the field. Yes, that is Grover, in a new ad for Sesame Street that brilliantly parodies the Old Spice commercial.

This week in Voice Overs of the World, we have a couple of spots from Apple Auto Glass, who are apparently experts in replacing car windshields. They’re also experts in making clever advertisements that feature a nice play on the classic “educational/instructional film” style of delivery.

They say that laughter is the best medicine, and we here at Voice Coaches agree with that. So, apparently, do Sierra Mist, John Smith Beer and a third company who I’ll leave unnamed so as not to spoil the payoff at the end of their clever commercial.

Even though the copy is identical to that in the first commercial, the delivery is completely different. This is actually a really great example of how two different actors can deliver two completely different reads of the exact same piece of copy.

In today’s installment of Voice Overs of the World, we have a couple of new food-related commercials that make use of some terrific voice overs to give the ads a personal, relatable feel.

European communications giant Orange has struck voice over gold with a new line of commercials featuring a distinctly American style of VO delivery.

Chef Boyardee’s latest campaign has been using some creative VO deliveries of late. So far, there are two ads in this new campaign of theirs — which features children’s forgotten playthings confronting said children — but I suspect more are on the way.

I’ve been a big fan of Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” ad campaign since it first hit television screens during the Super Bowl. The video above is an internal corporate video from Old Spice and advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy (the firm responsible for the hit ads) that talks about the success of the campaign. What’s really great about this video is that after all the hubbub of this multimillion dollar campaign, eventually it ended up providing a pretty sweet gig for a voice over talent, even if it’s not one that was ever meant to be seen by the public. Corporate videos like this are a huge source of income for many voice actors.

CompareTheMarket.com’s animated “CompareTheMeerkat.com” ad campaign is a wonderful foray into the world of character voice acting. They go all out with the characterization of Aleksandr the Meerkat, from the thick, heavy accent to the old world-style cadence and delivery.

I love finding videos like these; not only are they lots of fun, but they’re further proof that the internet has completely reinvigorated the voice over field. The latest company to bring voice overs to the forefront of the web revolution? None other than Taco Bell.

Sears and Craftsman are teaming up to bring voice overs to the entire country! Okay, that’s not entirely accurate, but in a way, that’s exactly what they’re doing.

I’ll probably never get tired of writing about talking animals here at Voice Overs of the World. Why? Well, because they’re such a great source of work for voice over artists? I mean, what better way is there to bring the innermost thoughts of animals and pets to life than through the power of a great voice over?

Whether you’re a car enthusiast or not, there’s no denying that some of the biggest advertising budgets in the world belong to the major car manufacturers. And when you have huge ad budgets, you also often find huge voice overs! Here’s a look at three new commercial spots that all feature prominent voice over work.

This ad campaign I discovered for Jack Daniel’s Whiskey veers away from the usual noisy ads and utilizes some terrific voice overs to set a mood and atmosphere quite nicely.

While I don’t usually spend too much time focusing on celebrity voice overs here on Voice Overs of the World, once in a while I stumble across a few that are noteworthy enough to bring up. In this case, I suspect there are an awful lot of people seeing these ads and going, “Oh, who is that? I KNOW that voice!” So I thought I’d shed a little light on the situation!

June 11th marks the start of the 2010 World Cup, an event celebrated the world over. So you know what that means, right? Voice overs! Or at least, commercials for the World Cup featuring some pretty cool voice overs.

Target has just launched a new advertising campaign called “Life’s a Moving Target.” These are pretty nice ads, following people throughout their life’s journeys at different stages. So far, there are two ads that I’ve seen, and both of them feature voice over as a dominant aspect of the ad.

In today’s Voice Overs of the World, I’ve managed to track down three voice overs that couldn’t be more different from each other, but each one offers ups something really interesting or unique that I thought was worth talking about.

This installment of Voice Overs of the World focuses on a few advertisements with great voice overs featuring accents.

Old Navy has always had a unique sensibility to its ads. Their latest campaign, the SuperModelquins, has been running for over a year now, so it must be doing well for them. And while I’ve seen a bunch of them over the past several months, it wasn’t until this most recent batch that I really paid attention to just how much voice over work there is going on in each commercial. Here I’ve spotlighted three of their most recent (and most voice-over-intensive) commercials in the campaign.

I found some great examples of what I like to call “Matter of Fact” Humor. What that means is that each of the commercials below are funny, clever, well-written ads that require a certain style of delivery. Although these are funny ads, none of the voice overs go for over-the-top humor. Instead, they take a subtle, more stoic approach. The reads aren’t flat or emotionless, but the voice talents involve add just little touches of humor here and there to really sell a dry sense of comedy.

These two ads featuring deep, male voice overs are about as far away from an announcer-style delivery as you can get.

Apple’s iPhone commercials have always been great commercials with really terrific voice overs. I’ve never been able to settle on exactly which ad to write about, though, but now Apple has thrown something new at us in terms of the voice overs, so I knew the time was right.

Olympic fever has gripped the world, and we here at Voice Coaches are just as excited about the games as anyone. Every day since the Olympics started, there’s been water cooler talk about the previous night’s events, and there hasn’t been an unexciting evening yet. I thought it would be fun to take a look at a few really terrific commercials from the Olympics that feature some truly outstanding voice overs.

Without a doubt, the Super Bowl is responsible for some of the most innovative and talked-about advertising on television every year. But it’s also a hot spot for some really terrific voice over work. While an overwhelming majority of the commercials in last night’s game featured voice overs in some capacity, I’ve selected a few to look at here in Voice Overs of the World that really feature extensive VO as an integral part of the ad.

There’s an old Hollywood adage that states that actors should never work with children or animals. That may or may not be true, but playing an animal has gotten many a voice over actor a job in the past. In today’s Voice Overs of the World, I want to look at some really fun advertisements with some great voice overs that all showcase animals in one way or another.

Recently, I’ve been seeing a great Dr. Pepper advertisement on TV that I wanted to spotlight here. Of course, that spurred me to do a little research and see if I could find any great voice overs from soda giants Coke and Pepsi as well. What I got was a little bit of a history lesson, as well as some great voice over examples!

I want to look at the advertising for the EA Sports Active Game for the Nintendo Wii (hereafter called simply the Wii Active, as it’s commonly known). Below is the full-length commercial for the game, and I think it has some rather neat voice over aspects to it.

In this week’s Voice Overs of the World, I want to take a look at Pop Secret’s new ad campaign. I have to admit that I really do love these commercials. Not only are they clever and funny, but they’re well-animated and feature some terrific voice overs. And the best part is, each commercial uses multiple characters, meaning that each one also provided work to multiple voice actors.

In their newest series of ads, various items that cause damage to cars such as tree branches, potholes, and even other cars are brought to life via some clever and well-acted voice overs.

A look at a few different ads that all do one thing considerably well: convey a sense of wonder.

It just goes to show how enduring the original Rudolph specials (and the voice talents behind them) are when 40+ years after they originally aired, they’re being used as inspiration for advertisements.

It’s pretty brave of a major company to put out an internet video that barely talks about its product at all (, but thanks to a creative approach and a really top-notch voice over, it works extremely well.

For this edition of Voice Overs of the World, I wanted to take a look at a spoof video that’s made its way online. This fake Harvard Infomercial is a pretty funny parody that pokes fun at Ivy League colleges. What I like about it the most, however, is how it really nails the look and feel of the real-life infomercials and commercials that we see on late night cable ads.

Welcome to the first installment of a new weekly feature here at the Voice Coaches Blog. With Voice Overs of the World, each week we’re going to take a look at a notable new voice over, whether it be from a commercial, a movie or TV show, a video on the internet, or anywhere we [...]

I recently stumbled across a couple of advertisements for Seagram’s Vodka (of all things) that featured some really fun voice over performances. There are three ads that focus on classic football rivalries (Bears vs. Packers, Giants Vs. Eagles, and Patriots vs. Dolphins), but that don’t actually use any football related imagery or sounds. What I [...]