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Research Shows Why Audio Advertisers Need to Diversify Their Voice Talent

Given the pervasiveness of the sonic color line historically, it should come as no surprise that brands and advertising agencies aren’t immune to its effects. Roger Gehrmann of Studio Resonate made the case for taking a stand for sonic diversity and recognizing the existence of a sonic color line above which, according to Jennifer Lynn Stoever, “white voices are recognized as American, and below which Black voices and voices of color are segmented as others.”

Sadly, the industry has played an active role in amplifying white voices while marginalizing voices of color. Consider the blackvoice minstrelsy of Amos ‘n’ Andy, sponsored by multiple brands throughout the run of the show, including Pepsodent. Ironically, Pepsodent’s claim was that it was the only real thing that could “restore whiteness.” Another blackvoice radio program, The Gold Dust Twins, was was built on a successful brand of washing powder by the same name and whose label featured two Black children.

In case we think these are artifacts of a bygone era, consider Sean Haney’s infamous video edit, “Every Covid-19 Commercial is Exactly the Same.” The video contained some 70 commercials, where roughly 92% of the voices heard where white, even though Black Americans are three times more likely to contract the virus than white Americans.

What will it take to open the ears of brands, agencies and marketing firms to our participation in perpetuating the sonic color line, and what will motivate us to make the necessary changes needed to cross it?

Studying racialized listening, ad favorability and effectiveness

Some brands may resist change until adverse effects on brand image and product sales outweigh maintaining the status quo. Others might turn to research to inform their marketing choices.

Unfortunately, market research into the impact of sonic diversity on ad messaging is practically non-existent. As a result, marketers are left to make inferences from research focused more on visual markers of race, much of which were born in the era when seeing racial diversity in television commercials and print ads was relatively new. And very few subsequent attempts were made to revisit these experiments or their results.

As part of Studio Resonate’s commitment to sonic diversity, we’re devoting time and resources to study the impact of the sonic color line and sonic diversity on brand communications. We recently completed a study involving two experiments (a lab experiment—conducted in collaboration with Veritonic—and a large-scale field experiment), designed to explore the impact of racialized listening on ad favorability and effectiveness. We hired 20 professional voice actors—five Black males, five Black females, five white males and five white females—to read three audio scripts that advertise three different podcasts: This American Life, Song Exploder and Sway’s Interviews.

In the lab experiment with 4,260 participants, we explored whether subjects detected any racial differences between the different voices, and whether the perceived race of the voice had any impact on ad favorability. The results confirmed a bias in the listeners’ perception of the race of the voice talent.

More specifically, we found that context (i.e., the podcast being advertised) had an impact on whether some Black voices were perceived as Black or white, that Black listeners were better at recognizing Black voices than white listeners, and that Black listeners had a preference for hearing Black voices (while white listeners demonstrated no preference for the race of the voice).

In the field experiment, we tested how effective the ads were in promoting podcast listening on the Pandora platform by randomizing 13 million listeners into 20 different voice treatment groups plus a control group, delivering a total of 75 million audio ad impressions. Here we found that all the ads were significantly more effective than our control in causing listeners to listen to the advertised podcasts. More importantly, we found no significant differences in effectiveness due to the race or gender of the voice talent. The ads featuring Black voice actors were not any less effective than ads featuring white voice actors (regardless of gender).

Taking the next step

Taken together, our results should encourage audio advertisers to diversify both their talent rosters and their casting practices. Not only is a move toward sonic diversity and inclusiveness the right thing to do, but, as our research suggests, there are potential benefits. Namely, the creation of advertising judged more favorably by Black audiences, without any negative impacts on effectiveness for either white or Black consumers.

The sonic color line wasn’t drawn overnight. It will take all of us, working together, to create a more sonically diverse world.