The development of a typology for voices in marketing communications
(A2022-107759)

AUTHORS

Maximilian Bruder, University of Augsburg; Michael Paul, University of Augsburg

ABSTRACT

Voices are important in many areas of marketing communications such as in tv and radio advertisements. Also in service interactions, for example, with frontline employees and voice-based technologies (e.g., smart assistants; Dawar & Bendle, 2018) voices are ubiquitous. Nevertheless, it remains unclear which voice types companies and brands may use for different purposes as marketing research did only investigate single voice characteristics (e.g., Chattopadhyay et al. 2003). This is contrary to the notion of Gestalt psychology, which suggests that all characteristics of voice need to be examined together to grasp the holistic impression that sensory elements such as voice create (e.g., Koffka 1922). Consequently, this research has the goal to develop a typology of voices used in marketing communications considering perceptual characteristics by the use of cluster and factor analysis. Further, we experimentally show that the newly developed voice types affect important marketing outcomes like brand personality. Our studies provide contributions to research and practice by structuring the important phenomenon voice and by showing how voice types affect marketing outcomes guiding future research and managerial decision-making.