ADVERTISEMENTS Tapping top celebs for voice-overs

Companies spend a lot, but it's not always evident whose voice does the ad.
NEW YORK (AP) -- "Bright. Crisp. Clean. Pure," says the silky smooth, perfectly masculine voice on the beer commercial. "This is Budweiser. THIS is beer."
Quick, who is that? Hint: It's a big movie star. Though his name's never mentioned, the makers of Budweiser are banking on the fact that you'll get it eventually -- and that you'll say "Wow!" when you do.
Twenty years ago, voice-overs were the domain of the baritone radio announcer or the character actor. No longer. These days, more A-list stars than you might imagine are cashing in.
Kevin Spacey's pitching Honda. Kelsey Grammer does Disney. Kiefer Sutherland voices Apple commercials, and his dad, Donald, did Volvo. There's Queen Latifah (Pizza Hut), Sean Connery (Level 3 Communications), Christian Slater (Panasonic), Gene Hackman (Oppenheimer Funds) -- oh, and then there's Julia Roberts.
That's right, Julia Roberts, in a recent campaign for America Online.
Easy work
It seems no one's too rich or famous to do a voice-over. It's not too hard to see why the celebs like it: It's an easy, lucrative form of work -- a few recording sessions where you can show up with messy hair and no makeup. The more difficult question is why advertisers are willing to spend a huge chunk of their budget on a star whose voice, however distinctive, likely won't be recognized by many.
"Honestly, sometimes I'm mystified," says Maureen Kelly, a casting director who's worked in the voice-over field for two decades. "I guarantee you most people couldn't tell the AOL voice was Julia Roberts. I'm just not sure why advertisers spend this astronomical amount of money when the voice isn't even identifiable."
By astronomical, we're talking seven figures, easy. Although companies won't say how much they pay, industry experts say a megastar like Roberts would have to make well into that range.
Or George Clooney, that mysterious Budweiser voice. When Anheuser-Busch was searching for "a classic voice" last year, the company hit on Clooney as the perfect embodiment of its product. "George Clooney -- it's almost a brand in itself," says Dan McHugh, vice president for trademark brands. "It just made a lot of sense for us."
The idea, says McHugh, is that the consumer will "sort of know the voice."
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