09-11-2012, 06:00 PM
1
TV Ad's voice.
This is Josh Robert Thompson, an American from California, and he does a voiceover for an ad seen regularly in these Islands, just before you google him, give a guess what the ad is.
"I'm More Than Freeman, thank you for listen-ing"
Were you right?, I just thought you might like to see what he looked like, I love those ads.
09-11-2012, 07:28 PM
3
Re: TV Ad's voice.
I think you're right there Barry. here's a bit more I found from across the Atlantic, this chap is a bit upset I think, ease up lad, it's only an ad.
Crikey, how did More Than insurance get Morgan Freeman to voice their new adverts with all of his "like a turkey on Thanksgiving eyeing up a bottle of sour mash underneath a hickory tree near a faraway creek..." shtick; a kind of insurance-related take-off of Freeman's folksy voiceovers from such films as The Shawshank Redemption?
Time was, More Than produced some of the most annoying adverts on the box, in the shape of the stupid Julian Barratt-voiced ads that borrowed music from Lionel Richie and Gerry Rafferty and added idiotic gibberings like "easy peasy Lionel Squeezy". It was shit. So shit it was the first AdTurd ever.
More Than seems to have had a bit of a rethink about these ads, which it hoped would "increase the viewer response rate". They now seems to think they're shit too, with marketing director Pete Markey saying that although the company wants "intelligent humour" they don't want to be "silly."
Whether you think a man standing on a roof, talking with Morgan Freeman's voice and calling himself More Than Freeman is not silly probably depends on whether you're a marketing director for More Than.
But I have another issue with this. Namely that it's quite easy to mishear the last line, which explains that it's not narrated by Morgan Freeman. However this clarification sounds exactly like the impressionist is saying "I AM Morgan Freeman" - particularly in the one about tiles.
There's two ways to look at this: either a complete, if fortunate, coincidence - or something rather more calculated.
Because having Morgan Freeman voice your new adverts would lend a huge amount of authority and raise the trust engendered by your brand enormously.
Republicans in North Carolina certainly thought as much in the recent US Congressional elections, as they deliberately used a Morgan Freeman sound-a-like to slag off their Democrat opponents in an attack ad.
That impressionist wasn't as good as the guy doing the voice here, Josh Robert-Thompson, who appears at the end of the adverts, and is helping More Than further their "trust, honesty, strength, and protection".
Well, him and Morgan Freeman.
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