The Difference Between Cat Food and Good Diction

As a person who records commercials and voice overs virtually every day, I pay attention to them when they come on air. 

Yeah, I’m the freak who listens to the commercials on the radio and analyzes the voice-overs on television shows.  Example?  Whoever does the VO for Undercover Boss Canada needs a tune-up. He sounds like he’s reading from the announcer handbook.  It should sound effortless not like you’re building a pyramid alone. But I digress.

Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of what my former colleague ( and voice-over hero ) Bob Magee used to call “cat food”.  It’s the spitty sound of someone’s lips and throat as if they were eating wet Fancy Feast. Too much saliva. And I can imagine that a producer who records this type of spot thinks it’s good because it can sound crisp.  But the click of a wet throat isn’t the same as a sharp bite on a consonant.  One takes technique. The other takes eating a donut just before the mic goes on.

I could go on and on about commercials. I love them, loathe them and I’m interested in them. I know first hand how a concept gets watered down or becomes average because of clients’ insistence on same-old-same-old or something that’s not radio friendly. But delivery is another animal altogether.  And it ought not contain any cat food unless you’re selling it.