Commercial Voice Over Demos for Itaú Brazilian Bank

In this Case Study, I uncover 3 different vocal designs I developed for one of my most successful voiceover projects of self-directed commercial recordings:

• Listen to how 1 voice can create contrasting vocal designs, and
• Discover some curiosities about these commercial campaigns for Itaú, the biggest bank in Brazil and Latin America.

Commercial Voice Over Demo Reel

Project's file

• Final Client: Itaú Bank.
• Intermediate Client: Vidmob.
• Scope and Deliverables: 13 campaigns (+40 pieces and variations).
• Usage: paid advertisement for a limited period of time throughout 2022 on TikTok, Youtube, Instagram - Bumpers, Trueview, Stories, Feed, Reels and more.
• Genre: Commercial, Advertisement.
• Techniques & Abilities: copywriting, vocal design, music selection, synchronization.
• Artistic Direction: I was given freedom all the time, with minimal direction. The adverts were recorded in self-directed sessions - without the client being online during the recording.
• Studio: Recorded in Amanda's Home-Studio.

João's Testimony

Case Study Video in Brazilian Portuguese

Amanda was invited by Full Sail University to a webinar where she shared some of the secrets and curiosities of this great advertising voice over project in Brazilian Portuguese.

Campaign iPhone Pra Sempre

Vidmob: Project Management, Copywriting, Audio, and Video Production

Amanda de Andrade: Voice-over in Brazilian Portuguese: Amanda de Andrade

Paulista (Sao Paulo) has different sub accents

The selected take for the first phrase, among many variations I sent - to my surprise - was a funny one, and it gave a unique scent for what was to come in the next seconds of this commercial.

That's because I use a very conversational and local accent of the São Paulo countryside, not the national, neutral, standard Sao Paulo accent.

It got people's attention, and it was natural, totally unplanned (yes, unplanned, I didn't plan it in advance when I was preparing the script and the reads).

After that first phrase, we go back to the standard, neutral, main, broadcasting, national Paulista accent.

The value of building expectations and delivering the unexpected

After that funny, non-announcer-y first passage (0;00 - 0;02), the voice keeps building expectations (0;03 - 0;04) when it grows to the word "grande" ("big", in English) and then it grows unexpectedly even more at "grandão" ("super big"), in a completely irreverent tone of voice.

A Signature that sounds like a happy "goodbye"

The signature doesn't follow a conventional cadence or a grammatical read of the comma (0;12 - 0;14).

Such an authentic commercial deserved nothing less than an authentic signature.

Campaign Cartão Itaú Personnalité Black

Vidmob: Project Management, Audio, and Video Production

Amanda de Andrade: Copywriting and Voice-over

Opposite tones of voice

It was a surprise when this project came to me.

Since we were producing dozens of commercials in the energetic, orange, friendly, upbeat, excited, bright, and sometimes bold, but always on the upper side of the vocal spectrum, I felt challenged to provide copywriting and voice-overs for commercials for the same company, yes, but now in a dark blue, golden, high-stake, sophisticated spectrum, promoting a high-end bank's product for a selected, elegant target audience.

Advertising for Luxury Customers

The voice design was basically planned to suspend all the rush, the pressure, and the competition arguments that are usually associated with commercials.

The voice talks from a place of equality, from a client to a client, from a person that benefits from what few people have access to.

The tone is soft and delicate yet conversational, confident, and natural. There's no pressure.

The message is an invitation to know more about this experience, this product. That's it, an invitation for a few people.

The emotions behind the voice and the script are freedom, easiness, exclusivity, curiosity, and pleasure.

Natural & unpredictable unbalance for conversational voice-overs

The elongated syllables and consonants (both voiced and unvoiced) and the words/phrases endings create an interesting, pleasant unbalance that communicates confidence, naturality and comfort, because this unbalance is natural, that's the beauty of a conversational voice-over.

Vocal Traits of Gen X and Millenials High-End Clients

The words are not spoken with unnecessary articulation or forced rhythm.

This is an example of how luxury audience and customers from younger generations don't identify themselves with exaggerated elegance, uncomfortable royalty and forced articulation.

Real refinement is being natural. And there relies the boldness of new generations. Everything above or below the natural is perceived as fake. Fakeness, unless tactic, is unacceptable.

That's a good model of a vocal design that talks to Gen X and specially to Millenial luxury customers and than eliminates any signal of needy-ness and pressure.

Campaign Abre Conta for Youtube

Vidmob: Project Management, Audio, and Video Production

Amanda de Andrade: Copywriting, Music choice, and Voice over

5 times in 17 seconds

Oh my, this campaign was a challenge. In the script, we had a tricky word: "conta".

In only 17 seconds, we have this word repeated 5 times. And not simply repeated, but with different meanings in each occurrence.

And more, there was a playful game, a mix of slangs, idiomatic expressions, and poetry, and in each one of the 3 strophes we had the meaning of that word evolving.

So how to bring fun, and excitement, while being serious about our message and clear on the meaning of each occurrence?

There was a serious risk of everything sounding messy, confusing, monotonous, or simply ridiculous.

Breathing Life through Musicality

The strategy was:

• to explore musicality in many aspects (melody, amount of beats, syncopation...),
• wide pitch range, and super conversational style (to have room for emphasis and variety in order to impress the right meaning in each repetition of the word "conta")
• and a sparkle of defiance. Defiance because the signature doesn't ask, doesn't try to convince. It sounds detached. No pressure, no begging. And our deep brain chases what moves away and pushes what comes too close. Curious, isn't it?

Curiosity

The most interesting characteristic of this project was the fact that they trusted me to create at least 5 different groups of vocal personas with different attributes, and accents, to cover all the major products of the bank.

I was talking to high-class clients, I was talking to solopreneurs, to company owners, to simple people that just wanted to create a free bank account. I was negotiating debts and also selling iPhones . And my voice and acting had to change every time the product and the audience changed.