The Unstereotype Alliance, convened by UN Women, in collaboration with Tesco, Kantar and Acast, commissioned the first research into diversity in audio advertising in the U.K. The findings show that accent bias is a major issue, with 62% of U.K. radio and podcast adverts featuring Estuary English, or King's English, associated with the area along the River Thames, including London.
The study, which analysed both podcast and national radio advertising across finance, retail, food and entertainment industries, found that only 19% of ads featured a Northern England accent. Welsh and Scottish accents featured in just 2% of ads, and Midlands voices in just 1% of ads. Broken down by sector, only 13% of finance and entertainment audio ads featured a Northern voice, while retail and food ads fared better at 27% and 23% respectively.
Although 51% of the UK population is female, only 36% of audio ads feature a female voice. Male voices dominate audio ads, particularly in finance (53%), entertainment (48%) and food (47%). Of the voices heard in retail ads, 53% are female and 23% are male.
Stereotypes are widespread
The study also tested bespoke audio adverts and respondents were asked a range of introspective (Type 2 thinking) questions and also completed intuitive association tests (Type 1) to understand the intuitive reactions people have when listening to audio ads. The findings revealed that British people hold prejudices and stereotypes around gender and regional accents. Respondents who heard grocery and finance adverts narrated by a male intuitively perceived the ads to be more informative and authoritative, and female-narrated ads to be more trustworthy and relatable.
Regional bias emerged again, with far fewer positive associations for northern voice ads. Southern voice ads were seen as more trustworthy, confident and helpful, while northern voice ads were associated with quality and taste.
While our findings revealed positive associations with both male and female voices and northern and southern accents, there is clearly an opportunity to subvert stereotypes by including more female voices in authoritative and informed roles in fields such as finance. Similarly, there is also an opportunity to flip the narrative around male voices by portraying men as more approachable and caring.
When it came to enjoyment of audio ads, ads with male and southern voices scored higher in enjoyment. However, financial ads with female voices were more memorable (74% vs. 67% for male voices), presenting an opportunity for brands in this space to break convention and include more female voices.
Sarah Morrell, senior client director at Kantar's creative team, said: “This research clearly shows that there is an inherent bias in audio and podcast advertising in the UK. However, the evidence also provides an opportunity for brands to be brave and make small changes that can make a big difference. If female voices in finance can make ads more memorable, why not strive to improve the gender balance in your audio ads? Not only is this the right thing to do and what people expect and want from brands, it can also have a positive impact on the effectiveness of your creative and, as a result, the ROI of your audio campaigns.”
Bianca Bush, commercial insights manager at Acast, added: “Podcasts offer an environment where consumers are more engaged and actively listening. As well as having a diverse audience and listener base, podcasts also offer a more diverse podcast host base and a variety of genres and topics for engaged audiences to choose from. Listeners are therefore more receptive to brand advertising, giving podcast advertisers a unique opportunity and responsibility to feature diverse voice talent.”
Melda Simon, UK director of the Unstereotype Alliance, concluded: “To truly achieve our mission of eradicating stereotypes from all advertising and media content, it is absolutely essential that brands reflect the public they serve across all touchpoints. We hope these results will inspire audio advertisers to diversify their casting practices, increase regional, working class and ethnic minority accents and strive for a 50:50 gender balance in audio advertising.”
