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We spoke to two of PH Media Group’s talented Audio Producers – Mark Griffiths and Josh Cassell, about what it takes to create the right sound for a business. With a client-base encompassing some of the UK’s biggest brands, just how do they decide what sounds best?

How do you choose the music for clients? What factors do you consider most important?

M: It’s important to match the style of music to the client’s corporate image as closely as possible.  On-hold audio should be an extension of their existing advertising strategy. Working from the brief, the script and the choice of voiceover artist, we can work out what music track will best enhance the message the client wants to get across.

J: For me the two main factors are:

Tempo – depending what business sector the company is in determines the tempo of the track. For example a fast-moving logistics company would want something upbeat and fast paced, while in contrast, a hotel would have something slow and relaxing in line with, creating a restful guest ambience.

Texture – again if it’s a multi-faceted company with lots of sectors and a dynamic approach, then I’d use a track which has lots going on – percussion with a wide range of high and low-pitched instrumentation, fun melody and a steady rhythm would be perfect. At the opposite end of the scale, if the company has a relaxed, less corporate image then I’d use a simple track with nice chord changes and a flowing melody.

Is it ever appropriate to choose a track that’s unexpected?

M: It may be if it sounds interesting and keeps callers listening, but generally the music shouldn’t distract from the main point of the on-hold production, which is the script.

J: On occasion when a company sells a product that seems fairly common, and lots of other companies sell the same, you may automatically expect a generic ambient track. Using a jolly upbeat jingle and fun voiceovers could grab the customer’s attention and make them think that this company isn’t the same as all the others, it has something different and quirky about it.

What’s the most popular track?

M: Rule The World, at the moment, we think.  It’s the second one we’ve produced in the style of Coldplay.  Their stuff seems to have the right combination of style and unobtrusiveness.

J: At the moment I would have to say Rule the World too!

Can you tailor a track to client’s brief? How would you go about this?

M: We can produce a bespoke music track to the client’s specifications if required, as an additional service. For example, our composer has produced exclusive tracks for TGI Friday’s and Audi. But we find that the very wide selection of music tracks in our current library means we can always find a great match for any client’s needs. We’re also on the cusp of a full music overhaul to ensure our library stays fresh and in tune with current trends, in terms of popular music and audio branding.

Can you think of examples of clients that have something a bit different that works well for them?

M: Many clients have their own jingles or corporate music tracks from radio and TV advertising and we can easily incorporate those into an on-hold production.

J: Coca-Cola’s on-hold production features their new song to tie-in with their TV and online audio branding. Essex Wildlife Trust use the birdsong of native species which works well with their script.

Hopefully this post has given a bit of an insight into the way our Audio Production team work, and the process behind matching great brands with great music. Keep checking the blog for more information about the ‘science of sound’ as we get technical in the coming weeks.

Where television and online advertising offer layers of stimulus – colour, sound, movement, logos – a telephone advert engages with fewer senses, but is no less complex.

In this post we’re looking at the impact of an on-brand audio voiceover; one that embodies your business and its beliefs perfectly.

Sounds familiar

In recent years, famous actors and television personalities have become synonymous with big brands. Ricky Gervais’ wing-man, Stephen Merchant, now voices Barclays’ advertising campaign, his dulcet Bristol tones bringing a laid-back approach to a multi-national name. Lesser-known actor Simon Greenall, better recognised as Geordie Michael from I’m Alan Partridge, has been revealed as one of the biggest voiceover hits with his Aleksandr the Meerkat voice for comparethemarket.com. While famous names and branding are not a new pairing, in today’s advertising the stress seems to be on the voice as much as it is on the face; possibly even more so.

Celebrity and recognisable voiceovers create a ‘voice brand’ which serves to show just how important voices are becoming to modern business advertising.

The professional pitch

Ensuring your hold messages, auto attendants and answer phone messages all seamlessly reflect your brand is essential for an appropriate and consistent service delivery. Without visuals, far more emphasis is placed on voice, the words your voiceover speaks and how they say them. And while it may seem like Brenda on reception can give your business a ‘personal touch’, as we’ve discussed previously in Mark Griffiths’ breathless post, natural speech utterances rarely sound professional.

Finding your voice

At PH Audio, we recommend clients carefully consider the voice they want to use for their production, making sure that it blends with existing campaigns and additional services like Web Audio. So, if you’re looking to find the right voiceover for your on-hold production, here are some points worth considering:

Appropriateness – does the voice suit your business?

Consistency – is it in keeping with your established advertising and brand values?

Credibility – is the voice believable and professional?

Audience – what do they want and how will that personality translate vocally?

Competitors – what’s already out there and how will your voice be heard above these?

Audio branding for business

There’s a lot to consider when choosing your voiceover and every business has different requirements. Male Corporate would never work for a ladies beauty salon, but could work perfectly for an insurance group or law firm where his voice can instil confidence and trust. Because callers can’t see the person speaking (at least not until technology is developed further), the imagination becomes a key player. Your voice’s personality has to shine through their speech, so the correct levels of conviction have to be employed and different voices will immediately conjure images in your caller’s mind. For many people, Male Corporate will be a successful middle-aged chap in a navy pin-striped suit, while Female Northern Bubbly is a blonde, buxom lass brimming with friendly charm – or maybe that’s just the way we see them?

The audio cream of the crop

At PH Audio, all our voiceovers are familiar voices from TV and radio. They deliver speech for a living so you can be sure that every rhythm, pitch and intonation is carefully considered and produced to your exacting criteria. Working alongside our scriptwriters, our audio production team will help you match the right words to the right voice, so your On-Hold Marketing is always on-brand.

Having a bad day at work and tempted to tell callers exactly what’s on your mind? For many people, indulging in a spot of under-the-breath mumbling is enough to relieve tension, but for one school in Australia, their infuriation at pupil absences and lack of parental support was eloquently spat all over their answering machine. In fact, a whole auto attendant message was dedicated to making their feelings very clear!

Did I hear that correctly?

With no fewer than 10 auto attendant choices, parents were encouraged to press a number most suited to their enquiry – covering everything from lying about a child’s absence or inability to do their homework to swearing at staff and complaining about lunches. It certainly makes for an entertaining listen – check it out:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwghabw4N80

Office on meltdown or just a clever hoax?

If this is a real recording, we’re led to believe that the message had disastrous consequences for the school.  Well, such a courageous (or stupid) message would! So make sure your day goes a little easier by keeping customers informed with clear, concise and direct On Hold Marketing and auto attendant messages. And if you’re feeling a little close to the edge, just write down an imaginary auto attendant list. It’ll make you feel better… and it’s much more amusing than counting to ten!

At PH Audio we’re in the business of making music and voiceovers that fit a company’s image and brand. Sounding right for callers is critical and has lasting effects. I found an interesting piece of writing on ‘creative synaesthesia’ which brings me nicely onto this post: creatively, how does a company develop an on-hold marketing production or create an audio brand that fits with their branding?

Artificial synaesthesia for audio branding – an overlapping of senses

Synaesthesia is a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another. For example, you might see colours when you hear a particular sound.

But ‘artificial synaesthesia’, as it’s coined in the article I’ve linked to above, can help businesses to understand how consumers perceive brands. By artificially recreating and understanding how people take meaning from a particular word or sound, it’s then easier to create the most effective combinations of voiceovers, content, style and music. Ultimately, you want to be able to positively reinforce brand values in the mind of the consumer.

The fact is, artificial synaesthesia is in us all – when we’re ‘being creative’ we often have to put a relative visual to a piece of music (or vice-versa). Or, in the case of making a film / video, you’ll often accompany images with an appropriate piece of music to set the scene for the audience. The same can therefore be applied to on-hold marketing, and more so with audio branding.

A feedback quote from Lizzie on the creative synaesthesia article reads: “I like the theory that in ancient times the natural way of things was for our senses to overlap … and that modern worlds have progressively dumped constraints on us and made us section things off in compartments”.

This is extremely relevant when we’re talking about the creation of an audio brand; the point being that an audio brand needs to represent the visual brand audibly. In turn, this reinforces the values attached to the brand in the consumer’s senses; sound and vision working together.

Why is sound important for your brand?

Sound is easily recognisable and repeated. We’ve touched on how you can instantly recognise the visual brand of a company when you hear a jingle and this is relevant again here. Memorable audio branding helps us to pick a product or service out of the cluster, builds trust and loyalty, sets a mood and strengthens a visual brand. Of course, a brand says something about us as consumers; it defines us and as much as we may not like it, segments us into marketable groups. Having a memorable audio brand makes it easier to build a connection between the brand and the consumer.

Final thoughts

What colour is sound? That’s subjective, but there is a degree of science behind the theory of sound having colour. Have a look at this video on the colour of sound.

By interpreting visualisations audibly, we can begin to develop an audio brand that is recognisable, memorable and sustainable. The best audio brands will last in the minds of the consumer forever, so when putting together your audio brand, think about how you could use creative artificial synaesthesia and how your customers will perceive the way your business sounds. What will they think of and how will those thoughts positively reinforce their views of your brand and company?

Further reading on synaesthesia…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/synesthesia
http://www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/2006/11/20/creative-synaesthesia-if-you-see-what-im-saying/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia#Grapheme_.E2.86.92_color_synesthesia

Mark Griffiths, one of PH Audio’s dedicated Sound Producers, offers his take on a small but critical element of voiceover editing.

My job is to take people’s breath away.

I edit voiceovers for a living. One of the main tasks is to remove all the breathing sounds.

Voiceover artists’ voices get compressed in the final mix. This has the effect of making all the quiet parts of speech louder. It’s one of the studio techniques that gives that extra oomph to the voices of radio announcers and pop singers.

But if you compress a voice track with the breaths left in, the breaths are amplified. These noises, which are normally so quiet we don’t notice them in normal speech, are boosted to the same volume as the words.

It makes the speaker sound like the Elephant Man.

So I get rid of them.

I’ve been doing it so long I don’t even need to hear it any more.

Using a digital sound editor like Adobe Audition, you can see the breaths on the screen in front of you. They look like little clouds, floating between the mountain peaks of the words.

Press a key and you can flatten the waveform into silence, evaporate the clouds.  Rob a person of their breath like a goblin in a fairytale.

But instead of choking them, removing their breath makes them stronger. A voiceover track without breaths sounds slick and confident. Somewhere at the back of your mind you’re thinking this announcer is so dynamic they don’t even need to breathe air like a normal person.

A lot of people think they have what it takes to be a professional voiceover artist just because someone once complimented them on their nice voice.  The truth is to make a living at it you also need the vocal precision of an opera singer, the versatility of a character actor and a lot of very expensive kit.

So in short: save your breath.

It’s 2010, which means it’s officially The Future. We’re all using jetpacks to get to work, using teleporters to go on city breaks, talking to family with our watches, that kind of thing.

Well, sort of. Google and Apple taking over the world besides, we’re not quite as advanced as our forefathers imagined. It’s easy to laugh at old science fiction stories, movies and games now we’re here, but some of them really did think we’d be in flying cars by now. Even Arthur C. Clarke, one of the most nerdy celebrated science fiction writers in the world, thought we’d be playing with gas monsters on Jupiter by next year.

So, in the spirit of predicting the future (and because it’s trendy to talk about the next decade), we thought we’d gather ideas about the way On-Hold Marketing might change and develop. Click ‘read more’ to see what we came up with.

The near future

Intelligent remote management systems

Soon, we’ll be launching a new on-hold player that allows us to load new productions onto client hardware remotely, at scheduled intervals, via the net. Web-controlled messaging means no more CDs, USB sticks or otherwise – and it’ll be simple because it’s remotely managed from our office, allowing playlists and music to be constantly updated.

Day parting

Day-parted messages are all about flexibility. So, if it’s 9AM when somebody calls, on-hold messages will say, ‘Good morning,’ and so on.  Eventually, clients will be able to manage what their callers hear before and after hours – with a different message for the day and another for the evening. Events and holidays would be covered similarly.

The not-so-distant future

On-hold video messaging

We’re already seeing rapid developments in the industry as telephone technologies grow closer to, and merge with, the internet. We reckon there’ll be a closer relationship between products like Google Wave, video and voice communications. In turn, this could mean that a kind of On-Hold Marketing shifts online if video conferencing becomes more widely used. Who knows: you might be able to SEE advertising while you wait…

The flipside is that more B2B and B2C communication is carried out live, via text, instead of on the phone. Companies like Dell already use live web chat to access and fix computers.

Targeted messaging

We also think that On-Hold Marketing, just like web marketing, will become increasingly personalised. So, you could ring a company, they could match your number to your name on their database, and when you’re put on hold, the messages you hear will reflect the services and products you haven’t used before.

The far-future

Your call, your choice

You’ve made the call to a company who doesn’t believe in music on hold with messages – so you get to decide what you want to listen to. It’d be a licensing nightmare for the company and the supplier, but you’d get your very own, hand-held pub jukebox. And if that sounds really far-fetched, don’t forget you can already get Spotify on your mobile!

Celebrity voice modelling

Call centre staff have their voices digitally altered into the voice of your favourite celebrity — alive or dead. You could be talking about your council tax bill with Arnold Schwarzenegger! And, when you’re placed on hold, Arnie’s waiting for you there, too.

Live on-hold messaging

Neural implants will play on-hold content to individuals at all moments of mental downtime: standing at bus stop, waiting for microwave oven, showering, scratching, etc. No boredom, only relentless information.

The Always-Factor

Phones might be unrecognisable in the future, but the value of a good-old sing-song is eternal. That’s why, whenever you’re asked to wait, scores of television talent show runners-up will be dispatched by orbiting satellites to sing on-hold songs to phone callers in person.

The ultimate on-hold technology

Voiceover artists will merge with playback equipment to become trans-human on-hold-borgs — the only people on Earth who can actually read this sentence aloud.

Have any ideas of your own? Share them with a comment below!

PH Audio are (queue shameless plug) the on-hold marketing champions throughout Europe, so it goes without saying that we know what we’re doing when it comes to all things on hold.

That said, we do like our clients to be on the ball when choosing music and voiceovers that really represent their brands. And although our Audio Account Managers will make expert recommendations – nobody knows their business as well as the clients themselves.

Music’s effect

No matter what’s happening in our crazy lives, we can always find solace in music. The right melody can change how we feel about something in an instant, so it goes without saying that music (used correctly) in marketing is hugely powerful.

Unless your advertising budget is infinite, you probably won’t be playing Lady Gaga or Take That down the phone to your callers – but this doesn’t mean your music on hold needs to sound like the tinny muzak of yesteryear. That sort of music upsets us at PH, so we’re always coming up with new and exciting tracks that really stand out from the rest.

He can’t pull a rabbit out of a hat, but…

Mike Cooke, our in-house music magician (that’s not really his job title, but it should be), can regularly be found tinkering with his keyboard and twiddling the knobs on his virtual mixing desk – all in the name of adding new and exciting melodies to our library of royalty-free on hold music.

Mike’s creations can be found on the website; there’s a host of styles, genres and tempos that do anything BUT uninspire those waiting on hold.

How do you choose your voice and music on hold?

The most important thing to remember when deciding on music and voice is to make your selection based on what your callers will want to hear (and not your own personal tastes). How old is your average caller? What’s your average hold time? What’s your industry? What kind of message are you trying to portray?

The answers to these questions are paramount to picking the best music on hold track for your business. And if you don’t think any of our tracks are befitting to your brand, you can always have your own exclusive track produced for a fraction of the cost of licensed music.

Voice your opinion

Choosing the right voiceover needs a similar approach. If you’re a young, vibrant company with a quirky marketing strategy, then an older and more mature voice probably won’t fit your brand. Likewise if you’re in a legal or highly corporate field, a spritely, youthful voice mightn’t help build trust in your service. The voice must be spot on to have maximum effect – imagine, if you’re familiar with it, Channel Four’s Come Dine With Me without Voiceover Dave Lamb. Doesn’t work, does it?

The right voice gives your audio brand its own personality. Its own identity. Our voiceovers are all picked from the world of TV and radio; many have provided the voice to some highly recognisable brand campaigns, and some have enjoyed roles in top TV shows. Suffice to say, our talking heroes are top-notch and can handle highly corporate scripts as easily and effectively as a humorous, comedy production.

So when you next find yourself listening to your own on-hold message, pay particular attention to the voice and music – a highly effective on-hold production relies heavily on the suitability of both.

Are you making the most of your audio brand?

Looking back and looking forward to OHM

It doesn’t feel like 13 years ago that we produced and installed our first production –  time flies.

Quarter of a million productions later and every aspect of our service bears little resemblance to the processes I’d dug out of the ground back then. Voicing, music, installation, playback equipment and service levels are in a different stratosphere to those bygone days.

But that’s business for you – necessity is the mother – and these advances mean we’ve consistently evolved and improved. What was quite good then is quite brilliant today, which leads me nicely on to the aspect I think has changed the least noticeably but most significantly. That is: what the messages say or, as we say in the trade, the scripts.

The writers

At PH Media Group, we have a six-strong team of copywriters who create the words for the voiceovers to orate.

They write a lot of copy. A very lot. Our messages play to people around the world for over 15 million hours a year. Obviously their attention to detail has to be spot on; we need to say the right thing at the right time on every production.

Why? Because every day people are being put on-hold or transferred – and with the phone next to their lughole, are going to eagerly listen to what’s being said. And that’s what has changed the most.

The messages

Most messages are still made on a similar principal, with 6-8 prompts, interspersed with music. But where we used to say, ‘please hold and your call will be answered shortly’ or ‘your patience is appreciated and your call is being transferred’ at the end of every other prompt (and still do, occasionally) what’s changed most are the prompts themselves.

The term ‘Less is more’ springs to mind. Our prompts now sound less intrusive but more inviting. We don’t force messages down people’s throat anymore; we seem to have learnt how to get a message across the ear piece by saying things a lot more quietly but with significantly more impact.

On-hold time shouldn’t be used for the hard sell; it should transmit a message that reflects the brand and draw the caller’s attention to areas that will be of interest and benefit.

And that’s exactly what our lovelies do. Our scripting has evolved in a subtle, progressive and pleasant manner, and long may it continue.

Grant Reed | Managing Director

It’s powerful, emotive and often controversial – music has a strange effect on us humans. Music on hold is unique in that it finds people when they’re not expecting it and can transport them (emotionally speaking) to another place.

The on hold music tracks below are the most popular choices among PH Audio clients in 2009.

They’re not listed in a particular order, because we want to know what you think – which is your favourite?

Tea for Two      

Ebb & Flow        

Cold as Ice        

Ocean Sunrise

Rule the World

Vote for your favourite track below right now and why not post a comment to tell us why you think it is the best track. If you feel that your on hold messaging could do with a fresh sound - contact PH Audio today!