A commercial voice over is thirty seconds of an actor selling something you spent months building, which is why choosing that voice deserves more than a coin flip. The good news: the decisions are simpler than they look. There are four jobs a commercial voice can do, three standard lengths it does them in, and a handful of honest rules for matching a voice to a brand. Here is the hiring guide we wish every first-time ad buyer had read.
The Four Jobs a Commercial Voice Does
- The announcer: classic, energetic, sells the offer hard. Retail, events and anything with a deadline.
- The conversational read: sounds like a recommendation from a friend. The default for modern brands and online ads.
- The character: comedy, accents and personality. Risky in the wrong hands, unforgettable in the right ones.
- The gravitas read: deep, calm, cinematic. Finance, automotive, and anywhere trust is the product.
Decide the job before you audition voices, and the shortlist builds itself.
Script Lengths and Word Counts
Commercials run 15, 30 or 60 seconds, and the script must respect the clock: as a working rule, around 40 words fit a 15, roughly 80 fit a 30, and about 160 fit a 60, less if you want the read to breathe. Cramming is the most common ad mistake there is; a relaxed 70-word thirty always outsells a gasping 95-word one. Our producer team keeps a full breakdown of radio spot scripts, word counts and examples if you are writing your own.
Matching the Voice to the Brand
Listen for the brand, not for "nice voice": every professional sounds pleasant, but only some sound like you. Two of our most-booked commercial reads sit at opposite ends of the spectrum, and hearing them back to back teaches the lesson faster than any paragraph:
Every artist in our voiceover collection has demos attached, and if your project needs a specific accent, age or energy, ask us; matching voices to briefs is the job.
Voice-Only or Fully Produced?
A voice-only order gets you the professional read, ready for your own editor to mix. A produced commercial gets you the finished ad: voice, licensed music, sound design and the final mix, delivered broadcast-ready. If you have production in-house, buy the voice; if you do not, the produced route costs less than a single hour of fixing a home mix that never quite sits right.
One Voice, Everywhere Your Brand Speaks
The best commercial voice over is the one you can reuse: the same voice on your radio ad, your online video, your phone system and your social clips compounds into a brand sound people recognize before you say your name. That joined-up approach is exactly what our business and commercial audio services are built for. Find your voice, then put it everywhere.
