A deep male voice helps women remember

Advertisers take note: If you want women to remember the brand or product featured in your TV or radio ad use a male voice-over with a deep voice.

A recent study by academics at the University of Aberdeen has found that memory in women is highly sensitive to male voice pitch.

The researchers conducted two experiments. In the first experiment, women participants were shown an image of an object while listening to the name of the object spoken either by a high or low pitch male or female voice.

They were then shown two similar but not identical versions of the object and asked to identify the one they had seen earlier. The women were also asked which voice they preferred.

In the second experiment, as well as manipulated voices, the researchers used real male and female voices to test how a new group of female participants rated the voices and how they scored on object memory.

In both cases, the researchers found that women had a strong preference for the deeper male voices and also remembered objects more accurately when they had been introduced by deep male voices.

In an increasingly cluttered and fragmented media environment any tool to enhance advertising cut through and recall should be considered.

It would be great to see the results of study comparing the impact on recall and purchase intention of two versions of the same ad; one with a male and one with a female voice over.

This study begs another question. Do male consumers react differently to male and female voices?Should Gillette for instance being using female voice overs?