Talking Product Voice
The thing being sold does the talking, speaking as "I" so the pitch arrives from the product instead of from the seller.
Definition
What it does
The copy hands the speaking part to the object. A bicycle, a car, a bottle, a package, or a natural force refers to itself as I, me, or my, and picks up a personality along the way: eager, proud, sulky, cheeky. It can run one line long or carry a whole monologue. Sometimes the object speaks straight to the person holding it, sometimes it simply talks about itself or about its owner. Either way the seller vanishes from the sentence and a claim turns into a remark.
Why it works
People answer a voice. A thing that says "I" stops being merchandise and becomes someone present, so the words get the attention we give a speaker rather than the guard we raise against an advertisement. The move also relocates the claim: praise that comes out of the object's own mouth reads as character instead of a boast from a company with something to gain. And it shortens the distance between buyer and product, because you are already in a small relationship with something that talks. Whatever tone that voice takes becomes the personality of the brand.
Where it appears
* Most frequent first, based on materials selected for the Persuasion Taxonomy corpus.
Examples of Talking Product Voice
“I'm as eager to get away from humdrum as YOU, old chap. Even Mother won't be around to make us do chores. I guess I'm about the best pal a boy ever had.”
A 1920s magazine advertisement in which the bicycle itself coaxes a schoolboy out for a Saturday ride.
Why it’s this techniqueThe product does its own talking and casts itself as a friend: 'Come on... Let's go', 'I promise to take you', 'I guess I'm about the best pal a boy ever had.' Every benefit reaches the boy as speech from the thing that delivers it, not as a claim from a seller. The structural tell is pronoun grammar. 'I' belongs to the object, 'us' fuses object and boy into one party, and the offer arrives as invitation, 'a ten-mile spin', 'out the lakes trail', 'a box of lunch'. Escape from 'humdrum' and 'chores' rides along, but it reaches the reader only because the object voices it.
Classification
- Primary technique
- PT-BND-9521
- Classification confidence
- 0.93
- Source
- Bicycle manufacturer, 1920s print ad (attributed)
“That's why my owner always insists on Autolite original factory parts.”
A radio spot for replacement car parts, delivered by the family car speaking about the person who drives it.
Why it’s this techniqueThe line speaks from inside the car. 'my owner' hands the possessive to the human and keeps the speaking part for the object, so the recommendation arrives from the machine that carries the part rather than from the company that sells it. The structural tell is the inverted possessive: a human voice would claim the insisting for itself, while only a thing that cannot speak calls the driver 'my owner' before turning outward with 'And friends'. Loyalty talk and brand-name repetition ride along, yet the persuasive load sits on granting a voice to an object.
Classification
- Primary technique
- PT-BND-9521
- Classification confidence
- 0.70
- Source
- Autolite, 1940s radio ad (attributed)
“I think I was always misunderstood. People just didn't seem to like me.”
The opening lines of a wind-power television spot whose narrator speaks in character as the wind, complaining that nobody ever warmed to him.
Why it’s this techniqueThe copy vacates the seller's voice and lets the object speak for itself, opening with 'I think I was always misunderstood,' a confession of feeling rather than any claim about what it does. The tell is first person fixed to a thing that has no mouth, sustained across two sentences that give it an inner life ('I think') and a social wound ('People just didn't seem to like me'). Nothing here argues; the object testifies about its own reputation, so the reader listens as an eavesdropper and extends the sympathy owed to a misjudged character rather than the resistance owed to a pitch.
Classification
- Primary technique
- PT-BND-9521
- Classification confidence
- 0.62
- Source
- Epuron, 2000s TV commercial
“My delicious chocolate segments are made with real orange oil!”
Confectionery print copy in which the chocolate orange announces what it is made of.
Why it’s this techniqueThe product speaks for itself. 'My delicious chocolate segments' hands first person possession to the confection, so the item names its own parts and reports its own recipe. The structural tell is the pronoun bound to a body part, 'My' attached to 'chocolate segments', with the passive 'are made with' leaving the maker offstage; no seller and no buyer occupies the sentence, only the thing talking. An ingredient claim sits inside the line, 'real orange oil', and it arrives as the object's own testimony about its insides, which is what the sentence is built to stage.
Classification
- Primary technique
- PT-BND-9521
- Classification confidence
- 0.94
- Source
- Terry's Chocolate Orange, 2010s print ad
“stop looking at my bottom”
A line of smoothie packaging copy written as the container catching the drinker inspecting its base.
Why it’s this techniqueThe line hands the product a mouth. 'my' claims a body the reader has been staring at, and 'stop looking at' turns that claim into a rebuke aimed straight at the person reading, so the thing being sold becomes the one talking rather than the one described. The structural tell is the missing human speaker: nothing in the sentence supplies a person to own that 'bottom', so the possessive can only belong to the object on the page. A bare command sits on top of it, and that command carries because the voice issuing it is the merchandise itself.
Classification
- Primary technique
- PT-BND-9521
- Classification confidence
- 0.90
- Source
- Innocent Drinks, 2020s web page
See whether your own copy uses Talking Product Voice, and what else it is doing: analyze your copy.
Boundary Conditions
When it lands
- The thing sold is concrete enough to picture as a speaker: something a person holds, rides, drives, or opens.
- The voice has a real personality, eager or proud or sulky or cheeky, rather than ordinary ad copy with the pronouns swapped.
- What the object says about itself would sound like bragging or nagging coming from the seller.
- The place the words appear supports the illusion, such as a package the reader is already looking at or a spot where the object can be seen or heard.
When it dilutes
- The "I" turns out to be a person after all, so the reader hears a spokesperson rather than the thing.
- The object speaks in flat sales language and the voice is only decoration laid over a claim.
- The character is dropped partway through and the seller takes the microphone back, which breaks the frame.
- The talking is charming but never gets around to anything a buyer needed to know.
Taxonomic Relationships
Provenance
- Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, Book IX, on prosopopoeia, the figure that lends speech to absent people and to inanimate things.
- Richard A. Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms, entries for prosopopoeia and apostrophe.
- Richard Reed, Adam Balon and Jon Wright, Innocent: Building a Brand from Nothing But Fruit, on writing packaging in the drink's own voice.