We have been in the press!

This is an article published in The Radio Magazine, written by John Calvert a producer at Air Force Productions.





"The last week or so has been a busy week casting voiceovers. Things go in cycles here at Airforce. One month, ISDN voices are the order of the day. This month National voices are all the rage. Names names names. Whatsherface from Casualty. That bloke who was in Hotel Babylon. The girl who was in Coronation

Street. The bloke who had his own comedy series. All of them are in demand. The Internet is an absolute boon for casting voices. It wasn't that long ago voice

agencies had to send you cassettes of voices you were interested in. Not only was it an irritant to listen through every tape, but you also had to find a place to store the ruddy things. Nowadays, all you need to do is a right-click and you have a celebs voice downloaded to your desktop. If you don't like them, they are erased. There are literally tons of voiceover websites to visit. For the Commercial Producer, its great. For the voice, well that's another thing. All of them boast impressive clients, but few actually deliver good, regular work. There are some voiceovers, agencies and websites who do a great job making themselves, front of mind to Commercial Producers, but I can't help thinking some

agencies do a lousy job looking after customers. I am thinking of one voiceover agency in particular. Here's a telephone call I recently experienced.

FX: (Phone rings/Answers)

Agent: Hello XXXXX?

Me: Oh, hi. Can you give me details on XXXXXs availability

across next week or so ?

Agent: And who are you ?

Me: John from Airforce.

Agent: I have no idea. Can you call later ? It's my lunch break.

Me: It would be great if you could help me now, the client

is keen to close the deal on a series of commercials

running on 9 stations.

Agent: I have no idea on XXXX's availability.

Me: Can you look in his diary please ?

Agent: (Tuts and thinking I can't hear her:) You're so inconvenient.

And so it went on. The Voice Agent concerned is well-known to an ad agency chum of mine and he too experiences the same curt responses when calling them. I am wondering if the voices they represent are aware of the way customer enquiries are handled? At times when advertising revenues are down, everyone more than ever has to pull the stops out when a customer enquiry comes in. Production companies

and station Commercial Production departments spend huge amounts of money on voiceovers every year. At the very least, we should be made to feel welcome when

we call Voice Agencies up. I also think a number of voice agencies fail to market themselves effectively too. In fact, I would go as far as saying that apart from having a presence on the internet, many appear to do absolutely nothing else to attract the attention of the Commercial Producer. No mail outs, no emails, no chasing customers up after they've made an enquiry (“Hi, just thought I'd get in touch to see if your enquiry about XYZ came to

anything?") etc etc. Again, I am wondering if the voices signed to these agencies are aware of the apparent lack of marketing ?

Thankfully, there are a few voice agents who are bucking the trend. One company, Harvey Voices have a presence on Facebook. Not a new idea, but their presence does grab my attention. The result is that I am made fully aware of who's doing what. And best of all, it's presented in a fun and engaging way. I get the strong impression that they are genuinely proud of their voices and are extremely keen to give them

lots of exposure. ISDN voices are also good at marketing themselves. Every Monday I receive a

dozen or so emails from guys and girls telling me their availability for the week. Although, I have to confess I do not have the time to read the emails, though it does remind me of their existence.

The late Mike Hurley was a great marketer of his own services. Emma Clark got great coverage with her London Underground gig and Mark Gregory recently used

the medium of film with great effect too. All these methods (and more) help to get you noticed and then heard.



...And in this day and age, providing you've got something good to say, there's nothing wrong with some shameless self-promotion!