The audio platform Voices is offering advertisers the opportunity to participate in a contest to discover the voice of their brand as part of its new campaign called “Love at First Listen.”

Tara Parachuk, Voices senior manager, brand communications, tells MiC that the company is tapping into Canadians’ excitement about dating and matchmaking with the onset of the spring to host the matching contest, this time between brands and voices.

Advertisers can sign up for the contest through a form on Voices website. In the form, they need to provide basic information about the brand, including the slogan, which will be the phrase that will be voiced. The winners, chosen by an internal company team, will receive a selection of voices that potentially fit their brand and will be able to choose the one they consider most appropriate. The voice can be used with promotional material on different platforms, including podcasts, online videos and social media. The company will use its pool of professional voice talent for the contest, which will run until March 26.

The campaign and the contest are being promoted with ads on social networks. Voices’ in-house teams are handling the media buying as well as the creative side. “We’ve run contests similar to this in the past, primarily using organic social posts to promote the contest, and we saw great engagement from our audience,” Parachuk says. “Overall, social channels, whether it be through organic posts or paid ads, have been really effective in growing our brand awareness, so we’re sticking with what’s worked in the past, but with a bit of an extra bump from paid promotion this time around.”

According to her, “Love at First Listen” aims to highlight how sound can round out and complement a brand’s visual image. “Audio is an often-overlooked element of branding. We understand that brands have a look and feel, but brands can have a sound too,” she said. “Branding is considered to largely be visual, being made up of a color palette, logo, typography, or style and feel that comes from the designs and layout of a webpage. Incorporating an audio element to branding, especially in the age of digital media, can help build a deeper connection and memorability with audiences.”

The contest also adds a fun and playful spin to Voices’ matchmaking position, while raising awareness of the company’s services, Parachuk says. “Voices has been matching brands, creatives, and entrepreneurs with the right voices to bring their projects to life for years – examples of projects include needing a voice over for an advertisement, a narrator for an audiobook, or the voice to a telephone system.”

Voices, created in 2005, also provides a platform for voiceover talent to discover and book voiceover jobs. Some of the brands it has worked with include Shopify, Bell, Microsoft and Hulu.