What voice says about your commercial or you

Voice, we might think, is our ‘verbal’ wardrobe, when in fact a large component of it is non-verbal. Not only does the voice say a great deal about an individual, but it also says much, via TV commercials, radio spots and print advertisements, about companies. In the same way, an annual report, a brochure or a letter emanating from an organization, is part of its ‘voice.’

To go the commercial route first – I’ve been struck lately by the number of poorly articulated advertisements in the media. Examples: The Huggies TV ad has a female voice doing the payoff line which is intended to go something like: No nappy keeps baby drier. Her articulation is so poor, it comes across as ‘No nappy keeps baby dry.’ She’s lost the second syllable in dry-er. There’s a TV ad for Cash Converters. I’ve listened and listened to the auctioneer and only suspect (there’s no way of really knowing without the script) that he’s saying ‘power drill.’ It comes over as ‘powdra’ – or maybe it’s just something I haven’t heard of! There are several commercials on air at the moment in which the voice-overs are sufficiently unclear to impact negatively on the proposition being communicated.

Foreign accent imitations are plumbing a low. There’s the motor car TV ad (can’t remember the brand – ’nuff said!) in which cops try to commandeer a woman’s car to chase a criminal. The pseudo American accents have me wincing. The celebrated Michael Mayer’s voice-overs are as familiar as boerewors and witblits. But his latest Bells whiskey ad voice-overs are distinctly wobbly on the Scots accent front.

In my old days at JWT and Ogilvy & Mather advertising agencies, we used to refer to the ‘tone and manner’ of advertisements, regardless of the medium. I often wonder how often anyone today asks, what’s the ‘tone’ of this ad? What’s the manner in which it communicates? Quite often we’re alienated in interpersonal conversation by someone else’s tone and manner. In exactly the same way, we can be turned off by the tone or manner of a communication.

As tone and manner tell their story about corporates, so the voice of an individual, tells its story about them. It’s one of the critical ‘image’ elements. People are left with a concept or perception about who or what you are based on your voice. If that voice comes through on the radio waves, then imagination kicks in and ‘creates’ the person or organization behind it. We far too often forget this.

On the personal front, accent mercifully no longer plays as much of a socially discriminating role as it did. Even the Beeb (BBC), perhaps the last public bastion of class discrimination based on speech, now boasts a plethora of regional accents. Articulation (the clarity of speech) is a major issue, particularly with people who speak rapidly. John Edwards (he of ‘Crossing over’ infamy on TV) is a prime example. Inarticulate mumbling and poor articulation are frequently the psychological expression of someone with hidden agendas. Volume of voice is a natural by-product of languages which have many or most words ending in vowels – for example, Zulu or Italian. So they project (carry) better and easier – often leaving people with the impression that they’re spoken too loudly. Which of course they may also well be. Enunciation refers to how we pronounce the vowel sounds of A,E,I O and U. If they’re ‘stretched’ and the resultant sound is mellifluous, it reads as low on hostility. If the vowels are abbreviated and the consonants emphasised, particularly with the P, B, T, D, K ‘plosive’ sounds – hostility is the interpretation. Volume is perceived within a Caucasian norm to be an assertiveness indicator but in Japanese culture for example, it’s considered yelling, and plain rude. Pitch (highness or lowness) is also culture-specific. Example: a very high pitch is considered polite to the Chinese and lacking in authority in the West. A low pitch is interpreted as attractive and strong by non-Orientals, but may be considered aggressive elsewhere.

What it all comes down to is that the ‘voice’ with which a person, a print ad, a radio commercial or a TV spot communicates, is part of the personality mix and contributes to the image of those people or advertisements. Paying scant attention to what people ‘hear’ is a serious error of judgment. We should listen to the ‘modulation’ - the peaks and valleys and light and shade and vocal variety of the communication. That’s what makes it interesting and memorable.

Like cures like

Samuel Hahnemann was the man who originated the concept of Homoeopathy. The underlying principle to homoeopathy is ‘like cures like.’ Example, you get a bee sting, the recommended muti is Apis – a derivative of bee venom. A simple principle whether you believe in homoeopathy or not - it doesn’t work on me, but does so brilliantly on my animals! The same principle can be applied in healing the mind through the mind.

Being one of the low-serotonin mortals on the planet, I have had to deal from early childhood with depression as an integral part of my life. Although the condition is better understood today and less stigmatized than even five years ago, it isn’t easy for the person afflicted with it.

The feeling that sometimes out of the blue, washes over my mind is akin to carrying the entire burden of sorrow and suffering of the Universe. It is the deepest, most ineffable sadness and quite inexplicably so. Two people I’ve recently talked to say that it feels the same way for them.

The developmental aspect of experiencing profound depression or extreme emotional pain is that you learn to conquer the fear of ‘going there.’ ‘There’ being a place of despond, immobilization and extraordinary loneliness that only those who have been there can fully understand.

‘Dissociation’ can occur if an event is so traumatic or painful that the person experiencing it attempts to ‘blot it out’ by detaching from it or dissociating from the circumstances or situation. What I’m about to describe is not this unhealthy reaction, but rather something you can choose to do, and which will be under your conscious management.

Let’s start at the beginning. You can have some limbs surgically removed. They can whip out your spleen, a lung, appendix, a kidney, take a piece of liver, shorten your intestines, even remove part of your brain and yet you’re still ‘here.’ You’ll say, ‘my brain,’ ‘my kidney’ - but they are not you and you are not them. As you’re reading this you’re aware of your responses to what I’m suggesting. Either going along with it, being sceptical, or rejecting it outright. And as I draw your attention to this ability, you’re able to observe it in action. You’re able to ‘witness’ what your brain is processing and make choices as a result. This ‘observer’ is your intellect, which is described in Sanskrit as ‘Buddhi’ – meaning ‘the illumined one.’ It’s the closest part of the mind to our pure spiritual being that we’re able to observe in action. Yet we still say ‘my intellect’ - so it too, is not us. It’s a faculty over which we have oversight and supervisory rights. A nice thought.

So here’s the technique. The next time your mind plumbs the depths of depression or emotional pain, don’t just go along for the ride. Observe your mind waves and your thoughts, where they’re going and what they’re thinking and actually say to yourself something like. ‘Hmmm. My mind is depressed. Okay. I can step back, observe it, empathise with it and yet not be afraid. However great the depth of this depression or emotional pain, it won’t last forever and my mind will again return to a more balanced state. I can allow my mind to do this.’ I’m not giving you some sort of script. It’s merely a guideline for the kind of internal dialogue I find useful and effective. The fact that you can observe the process and acknowledge the impermanence of it is a powerfully reassuring and ‘healing’ action.

There’s a beautiful story told by the Sufi Muslim mystics. A wise king called his advisors and counsellors to the throne room and said, ‘I want you to bring me something, which when I am sad, will remind me that I will again become happy. And which when I am happy, will remind me that I will again become sad.’ They went away for several weeks of introspection and debate. One day, they reassembled in the throne room and one of them slipped on to the king’s finger, a golden ring. On the ring were inscribed the words, ‘This too, shall pass.’ Remind yourself of that.

If you’re suffering from depression and anxiety, please don’t try paddling your own canoe. Contact the Depression and Anxiety Support Group on 011 783 1474. They’ll refer you to some help near where you live. Remember: the weak remain in denial about their problems. The strong acknowledge problems and seek help.