4 May /20

What Kind of Voice-Over Will Represent Your Brand in Its Video Campaign?

What Kind of Voice-Over Will Represent Your Brand in Its Video Campaign? - EVS Translations
What Kind of Voice-Over Will Represent Your Brand in Its Video Campaign? – EVS Translations

This is the question our teams ask clients when they come to EVS Translations for a video localisation project. And it’s surprising how many clients suddenly realise that – in the effort to launch a product video into an overseas market – they haven’t really considered this aspect.

There are many great examples of voice-over talent out there, online or on TV. But, there are also voice-overs which can be, for some reason, just a little irritating. The popular online writing app Grammarly uses a savvy female American voice, which inspires you to up your writing game. In the UK, the department store Marks & Spencer chose a female voice for its food commercials, but this felt like it had an over-sultry delivery. And, everyone knows that cinema trailers for action films are going to feature a very low and gravelly male voice.

Part of this is personal opinion, of course. But when you think about your company’s brand and any video advertising of its products or services, what kind of voice represents it and effectively conveys the brand image? Is it an authoritative tone? Friendly? Is it male or perhaps there’s a reason it needs to be female? Whatever voice talent you have chosen for your original video, will something similar in the new language be required or is there an element of cultural adaptation which necessitates an alternative? What does market research tell you?

The voice-over workflow: your 3-point checklist

Creating voice-over for video in a new language is a multistage process generally involving transcription, translation, voice-over recording, and embedding. There are options along the way, so it’s important to have a general understanding of the process to help ensure a successful launch. Here‘s how our video localisation team works at EVS Translations:

1. Do you have a script for the original voice-over content? If you don’t, we’ll transcribe the original and use this as the basis for translation. You can also keep this script as the basis for any future translations as your team reuses or repurposes the content over time.

2. Timing: Do you need lip-sync or narration? As a general guideline, aim to allow more time for lip sync work than narration.

3. Final deliverables: Does your team need the recording of the voice-over embedding in the video or just audio files delivering? At EVS Translations, our video localisation team can deliver on either preference. Receiving original files (e.g. Adobe Premiere Pro project files) makes the difference between a low- or high-quality product, so if we’re embedding audio content into the video make sure our team can access these files.

More and more businesses are investing in video content to communicate with their global consumers or a global workforce. EVS Translations works with these globally facing companies to recreate videos which are either delivered with subtitles or voice-over across multiple languages. Our video experts and translators have helped a major brand deliver deodorant commercials in Asia, a well-known employment search engine deliver its internal communications, a global charity support communities through informative video and much more. They guide clients through the process so brand and corporate messages create impact. A perfectly executed voice-over helps to ensure a video asset will deliver maximum ROI on a campaign, so why not speak with our team today who will make sure your video localisation project is a success.

Contact EVS Translations today:

EVS Translations UK
+44 (0)115 964 4288
salesuk@evs-translations.com

EVS Translations USA
+1 404-523-5560
usa@evs-translations.com