acroyear | invasion of the australian accents... (Reply)

i guess its just a combination of the success of south-pacific (australian, new zealand) films like Lord of the Rings, and the upcoming King Kong and Chronicles of Narnia, along with the fact that their studios can produce impressive commercials for slightly cheaper than american studios, but its getting increasingly annoying how many commericals shown in america these days are using australian and/or new zealand accents (apologies to natives of those countries, as to americans its really hard to tell the difference even though its as obvious to you as the difference between bronx and new jersey accents are to many of us).

major examples include the "what's in your wallet" barbarians/vikings, but more recently a number of computer-animated commercials are being dubbed in a/nz accents even when it would cost nothing more to redub it in the states with an american voice-over. the biggest example i just saw is that the geico gecko, once a sophisticated upper-middle class mid-atlantic representative, is now no longer an american. his new accent is undeniably from the southern pacific.

a few guesses why:

thanks to the movies i mentioned above, those accents are "popular", at least to madison ave.
american accents in advertising are easily ignored; a foreign accent that's still from an english speaking country (as opposed to an accent that can be considered a stereotype like german, italian, or japanese)
speaking of stereotypes, they may also be concerned that having an accent from one particular part of america may imply that the product is not targeted for other parts of the country, or that those from other parts of the country may feel offended at the lack of representation, or those from the region where the accent originates may feel offended at being singled out; better to go outside the country where all things are equal in regards to the states...

just some thoughts...