Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - S1E03 - Voices of Influence

Episode Date: January 21, 2012

This episode explores how voices influence us in all corners of our lives. From computer voices, to phone operator voices, to the voices we hear at airports. Some expensive celebrity voices in commercials are hardly recognizable. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan. You just have to love storytelling. Subscribe now and don't miss a single beat. new year new me season is here and honestly we're already over it enter felix the health care company helping canadians take a different approach to weight loss this year weight loss is more than just diet and exercise it can be about tackling genetics hormones metabolism felix

gets it they connect you with licensed healthcare practitioners online who'll create a personalized treatment plan that pairs your healthy lifestyle with a little help and a little extra support. Start your visit today at felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X dot C-A. From the Under the Influence digital box set, this episode is from, no, no. You're not you when you're hungry. You're in good hands with Austin. You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. Open the pod bay doors, Hal.

I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. What's the problem? I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do. What are you talking about, Hal? 2001, A Space Odyssey, was a 1968 film directed by Stanley Kubrick. Shortly after making Doctor Strangelove, Kubrick became fascinated by the possibility of extraterrestrial life and was determined to make a classic science fiction picture. A friend suggested he seek out noted science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke.

The two met in Trader Vic's in New York in 1964 and began talking about the project that would take up the next four years of their lives. Clarke offered Kubrick six of his short stories, and of those, Kubrick chose The Sentinel. They then spent the next two years fashioning it into a novel, then into a script for 2001 A Space Odyssey. One of the central characters in the film was a computer. Its name was Hal.

Good afternoon. I am a Hal 9000 computer. There has been a lot of controversy around the name Hal. One theory was that Hal was chosen because each of the letters in Hal immediately preceded those of IBM in the alphabet, a rumor that Clark denied. Kubrick gave the computer as much intelligence as the humans in the movie, and possibly more.

He believed that highly developed computers would learn by experience and would inevitably develop emotions such as fear, love, envy, and hate. Such a machine, he said, would eventually manifest human mental disorders as well, like a nervous breakdown, which is what happens to Hal in the movie. The voice of the homicidal Hal 9000 computer was provided by Canadian actor Douglas Raine. It's a remarkable performance,

considering Raine never saw one frame of the film while recording it. He just worked with Kubrick sitting four feet across from him, line by line, with no visual reference whatsoever. The resulting vocal characterization is controlled, aloof, and eerily neutral. I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over.

The name Hal has become a signpost for computers gone awry, which has led to a theory about the Hal voice, that it's the reason why almost all phone prompts, guidance systems,

and GPS voices are female. The ominous intimidation of HAL has forever influenced people in technology, as well as the general public. It is considered the sound of a computer controlling you instead of you controlling a computer. So for that reason, when voices are being chosen for technology, the bias is female.

All technology wants to sound smart, helpful, and accommodating. Hal was controlling, unbalanced, and menacing. But it demonstrates the power of voices. We are surrounded by voices in our lives. They pop up in all corners of our existence and they exert enormous sway over our actions and thoughts. How those voices of influence are chosen, who they are, and how they impact us is a story worth listening to.

You're under the influence. I have a confession to make. I hear voices. Maybe that's because I'm a voice director by trade. Because of that, I'm in a constant state of listening to and analyzing voices. Voices I hear on television. Voices I hear on radio. On my phone.

Voices in a crowd. Voices I hear in my car. A huge part of my job is to find just the right voice for commercial messages. It's a fascinating hunt. So much information is conveyed in the texture of a voice, let alone the content the voice is actually delivering.

For example, does a voice sound warm and comforting? Or efficient and aloof? Or does the voice have command presence? Or is it easygoing and approachable? How old does the voice have command presence? Or is it easygoing and approachable? How old does the voice sound? Is it hip and cool? Or older and wise? Should it be male or female?

Should the voice be a personification of the brand or the customer? Voices are chosen for many things that touch our lives. Voices influence us on the phone, in airports, on computers, in buses and subways, and even in our cars through GPS systems. The thinking behind the choice of those voices is very revealing. And you may be surprised to learn who those voices belong to. One of the longest-running advertising campaigns is the MasterCard Priceless series. It has been remarkably successful for MasterCard. So much so, the company has trademarked the word Priceless. It all began back in 1997.

Up until then, MasterCard had run five different campaigns, but failed to close the gap between itself and Visa. The tagline at that time was smart money. So I guess MasterCard really does mean you're special. Just don't let it go to your head. MasterCard, it's more than a credit card. It's smart money. But the campaign didn't have any emotional resonance with consumers. This is a fundamental truism in advertising. If people don't feel an emotional connection with a product, they may become occasional customers, but they will never become loyal customers. And loyal customers are the basis for every successful company. In MasterCard's case,

they were losing loyal customers to Visa. Visa was seen as the aspirational globe-trotting option, whereas MasterCard was seen as the everyday hardware store card. But that ordinariness was about to become a blessing

in disguise. MasterCard's ad agency, McCann Erickson, began to brainstorm hundreds of ideas. Then, one morning in the shower, a line popped into the mind of creative director Jonathan Cranon. There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's MasterCard. From there, copywriter Joyce King Thomas came up with the notion of using everyday shopping lists as a creative device for the campaign.

The very first commercial was set to air during the World Series in 1997. So Thomas came up with a baseball idea, which featured a list of ordinary transactions that led to the line, Real conversations with an 11-year-old son? Priceless. With that one word, Thomas knew they had it. Then came a big decision. Who should be the voice of the campaign? She didn't want a typical commercial announcer. She was after something less formal,

something more genuine. Thomas had worked with a relatively new actor once before that she thought might be perfect for the MasterCard campaign. That actor was Billy Crudup, who you might remember from the movie Almost Famous, where he played rock and roll guitarist Russell Hammond with the fictional band Stillwater. Here, take it. Let's take a good look at it, all right? See, you love this t-shirt. It lets you say everything you want to say. Well, it speaks pretty loudly to me. It's a T-shirt. But back in 1997, Crudup had only been in a few movies and had won an award on Broadway for Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia. So Thomas hired Crudup, and on October 20, 1997, the very first MasterCard priceless commercial aired during the World Series.

Two tickets, $46. Two hot dogs, two popcorns, two sodas, $27. One autographed baseball, $50. Real conversation with 11-year-old son, priceless. There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's MasterCard. Accepted at ballparks coast to coast. That year, purchase volume for MasterCard jumped 16%,

keeping pace with Visa. Billy Crudup became the ongoing voice of MasterCard, and when he read the shopping lists in the dozens of commercials that followed, he gave the words emotion and humanity. Crudup himself actually appeared on camera in one of the MasterCard commercials, playing a cashier at a gas station convenience store. In the commercial, a couple walks into the store, picks out some snacks,

then they bring them to the cash. We got gas too, man. Chips. $3. Frozen beverage. $2. Gas. $31. Starting a new life together.

Priceless. Rekindling a fire that never went out. Satisfying a much-needed slushie fix? Priceless. There are some things money can't buy. For gas stations, there's MasterCard. The MasterCard Priceless campaign has been running for 15 years and is now global, airing in 105 countries in 48 different languages.

And we'll be right back. In case nobody's told you, weight loss goes beyond the old just eat less and move more narrative, and that's where Felix comes in. Felix is redefining weight loss for Canadians with a smarter, more personalized approach to help you crush your health goals this year. Losing weight is about more than diet and exercise. It can also be about our genetics, hormones, metabolism. Felix connects you with online licensed healthcare practitioners

who understand that everybody is different and can pair your healthy lifestyle with the right support to reach your goals. Start your visit today at felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X.ca. If you're enjoying this episode, why not dip into our archives, available wherever you download your pods. Go to terryoreilly.ca for a master episode list.

Hands in my pocket Hands in my pocket Hands in my pocket You might be surprised to know who voices other commercials you're very familiar with. Recently, for example, I've directed the voiceovers for the Capital One What's in Your Pocket TV ads. See if you can guess who the voice actor is.

With their high-interest credit cards, banks always have their hand in your pocket. Get them out with Capital One. Great low rates, no annual fees, and rewards you can actually use. That is Randy Quaid, who did the voiceover for all the Capital One TV commercials in Canada for several years. And right around the time Quaid started having his difficulties,

Capital One changed voices. As a matter of fact, Capital One now uses the first cousin of this performer. Before you order your next beer, consider this. Budweiser still goes to the expense of Beechwood Aging, an original old-world style of lagering. And Budweiser cares enough to own and maintain world-renowned hop farms. A perfect choice in every corner bar, in every corner of the world. Reach for the perfect balance of flavor and refreshment. Budweiser. Open up a world of taste.

Yes, that's George Clooney for Budweiser. The new voice of Capital One is Raphael Farrar, son of Rosemary Clooney, cousin of George Clooney. for Budweiser. The new voice of Capital One is Raphael Farrar, son of Rosemary Clooney, cousin of George Clooney. George did several commercials for Budweiser. When our company was working on that campaign, my business partner Tom Emenson had to fly to Italy to record Clooney at his home on Lake Como. Every woman in our office volunteered to go with him.

Clooney's smooth, full-bodied voice was perfect for the smooth, full-bodied beer. But considering how much celebrities cost, it's surprising how often the public doesn't recognize them. See if you can guess the voice

in this Chevy Cruze commercial. Your first day. You try to lie low, get the lay of the land. But then Autoblog.com calls your interior Lexus quiet. An automobile magazine goes comparing you to a Cadillac. So much for the new kid fitting in with the rest of the class. The all-new Chevrolet Cruze, starting under $17,000. Get used to more.

Ten points if you guessed comedian Tim Allen. Recognize this voice? Right now at the Dodge 10 event, when you buy a new Charger, Journey, or Grand Caravan, Dodge will give you 60 days to decide if you want to keep it. They'll even cover your payments. This event could not be more amazing. Oh, wait, there's a monkey. I stand corrected. For all you Dexter fans out there, and I am definitely one, that's Dexter himself, Michael C. Hall, supplying his wonderful narrating abilities.

While some voices are provided by high-profile celebrities, other voices of influence are less visible. You are the undisputed middleweight champion of the world! Mixed martial arts is one of the fastest growing sports in the world. And the Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC, is an organization that promotes sanctioned bouts between fighters to see which martial art, or mix of martial arts, dominates. The UFC's programming is available in over 354 million homes in more than 145 countries

in 19 different languages. It also holds the distinction of being the largest live pay-per-view event provider in the world. And if you've ever seen the promo ads for those UFC events, you would never forget the announcer. It's one of the biggest voices you'll ever hear. It's the most anticipated rematch in UFC history between two of the sport's greatest athletes. Lightweight champion BJ Penn moves back up to 170

to avenge a 2006 loss to current welterweight champion George St. Pierre. Also, undefeated light heavyweights collide as 13-0 Thiago Silva takes on 13-0 Lyoto Machida. Bud Light presents UFC 94 St. Pierre vs. Penn 2. Live Saturday, January 31st from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Only on Pay-Per-View. The remarkable voice behind those ads is Ken Osborne.

And every UFC fan will recognize his famous sign-off line. Only on Pay-Per-View. The thing most fans don't know about Ken Osborne is that he's blind. And has been since birth. When he receives a UFC script, his assistant reads it to him, then Ken translates it into Braille. The Braille system is very interesting. It was based on a method of communication originally developed to satisfy a military

demand from Napoleon Bonaparte. He wanted a code that soldiers could use to communicate silently and without a light at night on the battlefield. He appointed a man named Charles Barbier to create that code. But the symbols Barbier developed were too difficult for soldiers to use. So, in 1821,

Barbier went to the National Institute for the Blind in Paris and met a Mr. Louis Braille. Braille helped simplify that code and reduced it to a six-dot system that is still in use. Surprisingly, only 10% of blind people today have the ability to read Braille. But Ken Osborne is one of them.

So when he gets a UFC fight script, he translates it to Braille, thanks to Napoleon's need for his fighters to be able to read in the dark of the battlefield. Only on Pay-Per-View. In case nobody's told you, weight loss goes beyond the old just eat less and move more narrative,

and that's where Felix comes in. Felix is redefining weight loss for Canadians with a smarter, more personalized approach to help you crush your health goals this year. Losing weight is about more than diet and exercise. It can also be about our genetics, hormones, metabolism. Felix connects you with online licensed healthcare practitioners who understand that everybody is different and can pair your healthy lifestyle with the right support to reach your goals. Start your visit today at felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X dot C-A.

If you've ever traveled through airports around the world or taken the subway in New York, you might recognize this voice. Welcome to New York Kennedy International Airport. Her name is Carolyn Hopkins. She's 63 and is the voice of over 200 airports around the world, as well as subway platforms, train stations, and even weather warnings. This is a tornado emergency. As she told CBS News recently, Hopkins fell into the job almost by accident.

She was working for a company that sold paging and company address systems, and she had the best voice in the office. Carolyn Hopkins has been reading those announcements for over 15 years and records them in a tiny home office in Maine. She reads the lines in short takes. No one sentence is more than 16 words, and all are eventually strung together by a computer. Her voice is clear and authoritative,

without being harsh and overbearing. Her impeccable diction means she can be understood even by those who don't speak English as a first language. As a result, Hopkins' voice is heard in airports in France, South Korea, and Lebanon. It is one of the most familiar voices in our lives, telling us when our flights are delayed, reminding us not to leave our luggage unattended,

and where and where not to park. Once, Hopkins' husband drove to the airport to pick her up. He got there early and parked in front of the airport terminal. He could hear his wife on the airport public address system, saying no one was supposed to park there. A police officer came along and told him to follow the voice's orders. Her husband then said, I don't listen to that voice at home. I'm not going to listen to it here.

The officer looked puzzled until Mr. Hopkins explained that he was married to the voice. The role of women as voices of instruction and service has a long history. For much of the 20th century, women were the sound of phone operators. What you may not know is that the first telephone operators for the Bell Telephone Company were teenage boys.

But the boys were unruly and frequently were rude to the customers. And when 12 young boys got together in a room, well, not a lot of work got done. So the company, later called AT&T, made the switch to young women, believing that they were more naturally polite and faster than the boys. They were also more willing to accept strict rules. And, of course, they could be hired for much less than men. But the hiring criteria were strict. Women had to pass height, weight, and arm length tests to ensure they could work in the tight quarters of the switchboards. Operators were not permitted to speak to one another.

They had a dress code and weren't allowed to cross their legs. They were given extensive elocution lessons to make sure their speech matched the image the company wanted to project. Because those early phone lines were noisy, with lots of crackles and hisses, it was found that the higher female vocal range would cut through, unlike a low male voice that would get drowned out in the static. By the late 1940s, before automated switches were implemented, there were more than 350,000 operators working for AT&T. 98% of them were women. That statistic still holds

up today. The majority of operators and voicemail systems are female. One reason for that may lie in biology. It's just much easier to find a female voice that everyone likes than a male one. As Stanford University professor Clifford Nass says, it's a well-established phenomenon that the human brain is developed to like female voices. It may start as early as the womb. Fetuses respond to their mother's voice.

Another answer may lie in history. A CNN report revealed that female voices in navigation devices dates all the way back to World War II for a very interesting reason. Women's voices stood out among the male pilots in a cockpit. It may explain why people overwhelmingly prefer women's GPS voices over male ones. In almost all GPS navigation systems on the market, the default voice is female.

Destination. Destination. Please say a command. Street address. Destination street address. Please say the city name. Sudbury. But GPS systems have come a long way.

Now you can even get celebrity voices, many of them male. Why not find your way home to the dulcet tones of Homer Simpson? Go straight on. Can I hear a thank you? After 200 yards, turn right, then bear left. Or Darth Vader. Come, let me guide you to the dark side. Turn right, then sharp left.

Impressive. Or maybe you'd like your co-pilot to be Snoop Dogg. G's up, 3's up, put your keys up in the ignition and let's turn this thing on. Turn right, then sharp left. So fly. But aside from celebrities, the preference of voices in technology is predominantly female. Is it sexism?

In many cases, yes. But the reality is that it's driven by market research, meaning that the stereotypes already exist in the general public. The new Apple 4S phones come with a virtual personal assistant called Siri. While it was in development,

its code name was Hal. But in the end, the voice Apple chose was female. And they gave her a little personality. Check this out. Siri, do you listen to Terry O'Reilly's radio show? I don't know who Terry O'Reilly is. Never mind.

There is no doubt about it. The human brain is voice activated. And how we respond is so revealing. It can be argued that a female voice is the first voice we hear, and therefore it carries enormous lifelong influence in our psyche. Some voices just deliver incredible impact, even though the sources of those voices

remain completely anonymous, like blind voiceover artist Ken Osborne. Then there is the mystery of celebrity voices. If you instantly recognize them, the advertiser gets to trade off the cachet of the star. But what if you don't consciously recognize the voice? Do you still react because something about that voice is familiar and alluring?

Does it press a deeply recessed button that still draws you in? The choice of celebrity GPS voices isn't just a novel option either. It's a marketing strategy. The GPS companies are contracting celebrities to hopefully attract you, providing another reason to choose that brand.

Then there's the sex of technology. Should a device sound male or female? to choose that brand. Then there's the sex of technology. Should a device sound male or female? Those choices swirl all around us every day. At any given moment, we may be responding to a carefully chosen voice suggesting that our shirts could be whiter or telling us not to leave our luggage unattended or in the case of the HAL 9000,

This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye. The difference is all in the pitch when you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. This is Carolyn Hopkins calling to clarify something I heard on Terry O'Reilly's radio show under the influence. I am actually the voice of 201 airports, to be precise, as of today.

And please do not leave your radio show unattended. Thank you for your understanding. Bet MGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long. From tip-off to the final buzzer, you're always taken care of with the sportsbook born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with BetMGM. And no matter your team, your favorite player, or your style, there's something every NBA fan will love about BetMGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your basketball home for the season.

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