Why you don’t hear many Scottish voiceovers any more.

There was once a belief that on TV commercials, a Scottish voice was more “trustworthy”. Particularly for financial services. Then scandals at RBS, HBOS and Gordon Brown’s handling of the UK economy rather damaged the Scots’ reputation for fiscal probity. But what really did for them was the independence referendum. Clients based south of the border, who’d been happy to use Scots on their commercials, suddenly heard a lot of Scottish voices saying quite unkind things about England. Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership of the SNP has made that worse, as did the many Scots’ support of anyone but England in the World Cup. Now Alex Salmond – that politically professional Scotsman – is being investigated on serious charges of sexual misconduct. I’m afraid this might be the nail in the coffin for Scottish voices, so enjoy these two. Many clients would now walk 500 miles to avoid having a Scottish voice on their commercials.