Date published: 01.09.08 - not release date

TELL ME WHERE TO GO!!

July 24th 2006

3717024FV

New study reveals which celebs UK citizens would most like to direct them on satellite navigations systems

It is official – the two celebrities UK citizens would most like to tell them where to go are Sean Connery and Joanna Lumley! But we don’t mean in a rude way. Consumer giants Packard Bell commissioned a survey to find out who the most popular voices belonged to and which people would most like pre-recorded onto GPS navigation systems, instead of the usual automated, robot-like voices.

Joanna Lumley and Sean Connery are famed for their recognisable voices and both recorded almost a quarter of all votes from the British Public (Lumley scored 22% and Connery 23%). Stephen Fry and Terry Wogan had the second and the third most popular male voices (with 16% and 10% of the votes respectively) while Dame Judi Dench and Dawn French had the second and third most popular women’s voices (the former recorded 20% of votes, the latter 14%).

Most popular male voices (as voted by men and women combined)

1/. Sean Connery (23%)
2/. Stephen Fry (16%)
3/. Terry Wogan (11%)
4/. George Clooney (9%)
5/. Sean Bean (7%)

Most popular female voices (as voted for by men and women combined)

1/. Joanna Lumley (22%)
2/. Judi Dench (20%)
3/. Dawn French (14%)
4/. Mariella Fostrup (5%)
5/. Billie Piper and Liz Hurley (both 4%)

In order to gauge differences between the sexes, results also revealed which celebrity voices appealed most to men and which to women. And it appears the soothing, sophisticated tones of actress Joanna Lumley are most popular with British blokes - over 1/5 of all male respondents voted for her. Coming in a close second was revered thespian and the queen of British cinema, Dame Judi Dench, with 17% of male votes. The loveable and ‘laugh-out-loud’ funny Dawn French had the third most popular voice among British men – Lenny Henry’s other half recorded 8% of the vote.

British Women on the other hand are seemingly swooning over the dulcet, Scottish tones of Sean Connery – almost a quarter of all female votes went to the suave ex-007 actor (24%). For their second placed celebrity voice UK women looked a little further a-field; American heart-throb George Clooney secured 15% of the vote. In third place for the ladies was renowned intellect and all-round genius Stephen Fry. The gentle giant got the vote from 13% of British women.

In the men on men list, findings were equally interesting. As popular with the men as they are with the women, Sean Connery and Stephen Fry recorded 22% and 19% of the votes respectively. In third place was the wig-wearing Irish radio supremo, Terry Wogan. Proving he’s just as popular in the 21st century as he was in the 20th, the nation’s favourite DJ got 11% of the male on male vote.

The women on women list threw up a few surprises too. While Joanna Lumley was the guy’s number 1, the ladies dropped her in favour of Dame Judi – the latter got 23% of the vote while the former got 20%. In third place was Dawn French with 19% of total votes.

Not just content with finding out who the nation’s favourite voices belonged to, we also wanted to know why they were picked. Perhaps explaining his position as the all-round number one male, 24% of respondents said they voted for ‘old-school cool’ Sean Connery because they thought his voice was sexy and 23% because they thought it was relaxing. True to his character, 34% of respondents voted for Stephen Fry because they thought he was ‘intelligent sounding’, while Mr Wogan got a whopping 48% of his votes on the premise that his voice, like Connery’s, was relaxing – no surprise there then! Of the leading ladies, Joanna Lumley and Dame Judi Dench both scored highly because they’re voices are relaxing too (24% for Joanna, 23% for Dame Judi) while Dawn French scored most of hers for sounding sexy (28%).

Celebrities going down…

As well as ascertaining the nation’s favourite voices, the survey also reveals the celebrity UK citizens would least like to give them directions on a GPS system. It may not happen very often, but in this case the nation’s men and women were united. Hers is a rags to riches tale, but proving her voice is no less annoying now then when she hit the big time on Big Brother years back, Jade Goody topped the list for least favourite voice. 26% of guys voted for Jade while 27% of women voted for her. On a final note, Joe Pasquale (20%) and Lloyd Grosman (14%) made up the top three most hated voices.

Jason Fletcher, UK Marketing Manager of Packard Bell said, “We have been looking at the issue of dull sounding voices in GPS systems and this research has opened up several new product development ideas for us. We may soon be approaching Mr Connery!”

-ends-

Press Enquiries:

Packard Bell Press Office, icas PR
Tel: 020 7632 2428
Fax: 020 7240 2520
Email: packardbell@icas.co.uk

Notes to editors:

The research was carried out by YouGov plc. The survey was conducted using an online interview to a base representing all GB adults. The fieldwork took place between the 5th and the 10th of July 2006 with 2000 respondents.

Packard Bell’s new GPS system is the Compasseo 500. Available now from Currys and PC World stores nationwide, prices for the Packard Bell Compasseo GPS 500 unit are from £189.

Full Survey results: Most popular male voices as voted for by men and women combined

1/. Sean Connery (23%)
2/. Stephen Fry (16%)
3/. Terry Wogan (11%)
4/. George Clooney (9%)
5/. Sean Bean (7%)

Most popular female voices as voted for by men and women combined

1/. Joanna Lumley (22%)
2/. Judi Dench (20%)
3/. Dawn French (14%)
4/. Mariella Fostrup (5%)
5/. Billie Piper and Liz Hurley (both 4%)

Most popular male celebrity voices as voted for by men

1/. Sean Connery (22%)
2/. Stephen Fry (19%)
3/. Terry Wogan (11%)
4/. Sean Bean (7%)
5/. Ricky Gervais (6%)

Most popular female celebrity voices as voted for by men

1/. Joanna Lumley (23%)
2/. Judi Dench (17%)
3/. Dawn French (8%)
4/. Liz Hurley and Mariella Fostrup (both 7%)

Most popular male celebrity voices as voted for by women

1/. Sean Connery (24%)
2/. George Clooney (15%)
3/. Stephen Fry (13%)
4/. Sean Bean (7%)
5/. Kiefer Sutherland (6%)

Most popular female celebrity voices as voted for by women

1/. Judi Dench (23%)
2/. Joanna Lumley (20%)
3/. Dawn French (19%)
4/. Billie Piper, Kirsty Allsop and Mariella Fostrup (all 3%)

Least popular celebrity voices as voted for by men and women combined

1/. Jade Goody (26%)
2/. Joe Pasquale (20%)
3/. Lloyd Grosman (14%)
4/. Ruby Wax (9%)
5/. Chantelle Houghton (6%)