The company Waze uses
a marketing strategy which sell different famous voices like Morgan
Freeman one to their users. The variety of voices to choose is large but
it is surprising that there is no woman's voice.
“The most important characteristic is a unique voice and brand,
regardless of gender,” says Waze’s head of brand and global marketing, Julie Mossler, when pressed about the lack of
female celebrity voice upgrades. In contrast, he specified that the decision to buy only male voices rests with
the client.
“A female's
voice is more calming,” says Jessi Combs, professional race-car driver and
television personality. She may be right. At first, all navigation systems
tend to have a female voice, including Waze. Another example is
Apple's Siri narrated by Susan Bennett. According to Bennett, the female voices
tend to be softer and therefore more pleasant to listen to.
The data shows that both men and women with lower pitched voices
are perceived as stronger and more dominant, as leaders, someone who should be
listened to. Moreover, this kind of voices inspire confidence and not only authority. In countries
like France or UK, maybe because the culture and the sexism, Siri's debut voice
was male by default.
Vocabulary
Personal Opinion
Firstly, the problem is not in that between the male voice or female voice, but there should be no distinction between them. By this I mean that, for example, if we are driving and GPS voice is male, we should not ask ourselves "Why is a male and not a female?" and vice versa. We must eliminate these automatic thoughts and so there will be gender equality.
No comments:
Post a Comment