T.V. Advertising. United Kingdom.?

Question

Why do so many companies, selling make-up, manufactured in the U.K. and selling second hand motor cars in the U.K., use people with American accents, for their voice overs, during tv adverts.

Is the ordinary British, be it English, Welsh, Scottish or Irish accent not good enough?

I certainly don't think that an American accent, adds anything to an an ad.

What do you think?

Answer 1

I agree. I think a "regional" accent has greater impact. You are more likely to listen. I'm more likely to mentally switch off if theres an unknown American accent on the TV.

Answer 2

In the past advertisements were made by the Americans for use in the U.S.A, and G.B.in the `old` days we knew very little about tele-sales and the Americans had been at it a lot longer than us. Now that we make some of the best advertisements in the world, there is no excuse for this. I dislike American accents in our advertisements but prefer them by far to the continental accents that we seem to be getting now.However , when trying to sell a product to the whole country, it is better to use someone who is accent-less, rather than someone with a strong northern or southern accent. I think people hear the accent rather than the advertisement and associate the product with the accent. When possible it is good to use adverts with regional accents in the region they come from in the different T.V. areas.

Answer 3

I prefer hearing British accents. Thankfully a lot of ads do use British voices so we don't have to put up with the annoying yank sounds too much!

Answer 4

Sorry i disagree, the american acent is a lot more polite, what do you want some dude from Manchester/Liverpool, etc spitting down the mic, no offence as im from Manchester!

Answer 5

They probably think the Americans are more sophisticated, which is totally untrue.