Rowan Dean, marketing columnist at the AFR: “Helpful” brands hang voice artist out to dry
By Rowan Dean, marketing columnist at the Australian Financial Review.
“How can we help?” Walk into any Bankwest premises and those words, in giant letters on a bright orange wall, are the first thing that strikes you. It’s eye-catching, simple and says a lot about a brand that boasts of being “positive” and “making your experience as happy as possible”.
Being helpful is also the promise of the NRMA, which spent many years fusing the four letters H-E-L-P in consumers’ minds with its logo. Although NRMA and NRMA Insurance are different entities, to many they are the same brand. Undoubtedly, NRMA’s “help” campaign has had a halo effect upon NRMA Insurance.
In Western Australia, insurer RAC open its website with the words: “RAC helps you . . . “
So if any brands were to provide assistance to a loyal and effective worker in his or her moment of need, you would have assumed it might have been Bankwest, RAC and NRMA Insurance.
Sadly, there’s a world of difference between how brands say they behave and how they actually behave.
The story of actor Ben Oxenbould (pictured), who spent many years providing effective voice-overs for all three of those companies and many others, is complex. Being a voice-over artist is a skilled profession, requiring the right emphasis and empathy to communicate a brand’s message and personality. Oxenbould ran into a spot of car trouble several weeks ago, in the process creating a tabloid frenzy. Crash Test Dummy was the Easter weekend headline accompanying Oxenbould’s court appearance for a mish-mash of parking and other offences which coincided with a road safety radio ad he had recorded years earlier and which was running in NSW.
The Daily Telegraph whipped up a storm, followed eagerly by Seven’s Sunriseprogram and others, about the “terrible driver” whose voice was used in ads warning against driver fatigue. Clearly fatigued himself, NSW Roads Minister Duncan Gay threw a bone to the salivating journos, declaring Oxenbould would “never again” be used.
Within a day, after 22 years in the business, all of Oxenbould’s other major clients dropped him. NRMA Insurance, RAC and Bankwest all cancelled bookings or shelved projects.
“Bankwest are very touchy when it comes to these things,” offered an employee of Host, Bankwest’s ad agency, admitting, “Ben is an absolute legend and pro at what he does.”
“NRMA Insurance is no longer using Ben for voice-overs for their retail brands,” said advertising manager for NRMA Insurance, John Lewis. This decision was made without any consultation with [ad agency] Whybin TBWA.”
“Regrettably this goes beyond non-payment of parking fines. On top of a string of minor speeding fines and other various traffic infringements, he was also caught driving an unregistered vehicle, with a suspended licence, and then gave a false report to police, claiming to be his brother,” explained a reluctant employee of JWT, RAC’s agency, as to why Oxenbould was dropped.
The story of why Oxenbould was in court would make a great short film calledThe Perils of Not Paying Your Parking Fines. But critically, having carefully considered what occurred, the judge deemed Oxenboulds offence worthy of nothing more than a $200 fine, $83 court costs and no conviction. Repeat: no conviction.
His real crime was being in the public eye at the wrong moment, and having “tabloid tittle-tattle” tattooed on his forehead thanks to his (entirely unconnected) links to the Hey Dad! sex scandal. Oxenbould was in the 1990s show and is a potential witness to allegations.
A voice-over artist provides precisely that: a voice. Nothing more. No personal endorsement, no visual presence. Indeed, other than family and friends, very few people would be able to identify a voice-over artist. It is inconceivable that consumers listening to a Bankwest ad would be thinking “hang on – I know that voice! Isn’t that the bloke who got a parking fine and pretended to be his brother? Goddammit! I’m taking my money out of that bloody bank!”
Yet that’s the underlying assumption of the marketing types whose knee-jerk reactions have terminated Oxenbould’s career.
Arguably, the two insurance companies might be forgiven for treading warily, but a bank? By the logic of “damned by association”, any loyal supplier who has been slapped with a fine should therefore be dumped. Disappointingly, none of the companies or their ad agencies bothered to seek a more constructive or creative solution. Why not take Oxenbould’s story and use it as a cautionary tale?
In response to my enquiries, Bankwest merely pointed out they can choose whoever they want for voice-over work. Hardly “helpful”.
In case anyone’s interested, Oxenbould is now unemployed and broke. Some years ago, he established a school for disadvantaged kids in Nepal entirely with his own funds and off his own back, which may now have to close. Unlike the brands that boast of helping people, Oxenbould genuinely did.
16 Comments
well said rowan.. this has been nuts what has gone down.
This is ridiculous. Ben’s a top notch VO artist who doesn’t deserve to have his career ruined over a couple of fines. And nine times out of ten, clients wouldn’t have a clue who voices their ads, particularly radio spots. If I have the opportunity and he’s the right man for the job, I’ll definitely get him in. It would be great if other writers could extend a similar hand. Your spot will thank you for it.
How ridiculous. No conviction recorded. No one killed. What a disgrace to ruin a good persons career. I for one will keep booking Ben.
So why stop at VO artists? Imagine if clients dug into the creatives and suits that worked on their accounts. I think there’d be a few parking fines there.
The VO artist is about as recognisable to Joe Public as the copywriter or art director i.e. not very.
If we looked closer at other indivuals in this business and took the same approach there’d be only a handful of people employed. What a load of crap!
All the more reason to book Ben!! See ya at the next session
where does this stop hmmm?
If a VO is on contract say to the ABC or SBS and also does Political Ads (@ 2 x the rate) and they were ‘exposed’ would that jeopardise their income??
Ben’s a cool VO and shouldn’t be picked on here – there’s plenty other worthy stuff for that
Ben is a top bloke and a great VO artist. The way he’s been treated is absolutely disgusting. The Daily Telegraph and Seven don’t care who or what they destroy in the interest of churning out the misinformed faux outrage they loosely call news.
Shouldn’t the clients themselves be examined as throughly as Ben? Surely if this is the benchmark, then everyone at Bankwest, RAC and NRMA better be as clean as a whistle. People in glass houses, or skyscrapers… Let’s see their driving records.
yes,that’s right up there with the decision of sydney university,a supposed institution of teaching and learning,to not allow the dalai lama to give a talk.
what a bunch of supercilious cunts.
He’s great. Everyone should consider him for there next job. Problem over.
Meanwhile…
HBoS (Ex Bankwest parent company) bankers face corruption charges.Two senior HBOS bankers accused of corrupt practices, which led to an alleged £35m loans scam, appeared in Southwark Crown Court this week.
Live by the Sword, die by the sword. It’s very clear that the companies concerned have used this man’s minor misdemeanors to to and promote a “moral stance”. Complete rubbish. If this kind of cheap, insincere weasel-like behaviour is what they are perpetrating in a public situation , one can only imagine how they are handling your insurance, your banking and your other services…
Victimising the little man puts a dirty stain on all of their reputations, and only a mass exodus of customers from Bankwest, RAC and NRMA Insurance can put this right.
If I was a competitor of one of these companies, I’d start a campaign right away saying something like ” Unlike our corporate bully competitors, we care about the individual out there…we know that nobody’s perfect and we care about you…that’s why we’re hiring Ben Oxenbould as the voice of our company. Leave ( Bankwest, Rac , NRMA Insurance) and join us today.
He without sin cast the first stone.
Typical of this company to smash the little guy, shit, they even do it to their own staff. speaking of that, they still employ staff that have been done for DUI and other shit. Two faced shits
I work at Bankwest, it’s basically like working in a twisted, rotting, mirror universe version of Care Bear Land.