Now that the first reaction to the nominees has settled, people can start digesting the news. Was Barbie snubbed? Who will win best actress? Is Cillian Murphy a guaranteed win?  

The Big Screen Battle

With no surprise, the film with the most nominations this year is ‘Oppenheimer’ with 13 in total. ‘Poor Things’ came in second with 11 Oscars nominations. And ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ with 10. But as we know, ‘Barbenheimer’ is the biggest face off. And where everyone’s eyes will be focused during the awards show. 

Faith Talamantez / The Daily Stench

The two smash hits of the summer of 2023, Barbie and Oppenheimer, released on the same day. So, people started going to the cinemas and watching one movie after the other, calling it the ‘Barbenheimer experience’—a 5 hour long emotional cinematic rollercoaster. It’s no secret that both movies have been head to head since their release. And at the Oscars, it will be no different. 

The Barbie Snub?

The biggest media discourse since the nominations announcement has been the Academy’s lack of Barbie recognition. While being the highest grossing film in 2023, two important categories seemed to be missing from Barbie’s nomination roster: Best Director and Best Actress. 

The film did get 8 nominations. Ryan Gosling was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. America Ferrera was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. The movie received nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay, Costume Design and Production Design. And with two Best Song nominations, ‘What was I made for’ by Billie Eilish and ‘I’m Just Ken’ by Ryan Gosling.

While Margot Robbie’s lack of nomination did shock everyone, it’s particularly hard to argue which of the current nominees could’ve been substituted. Robbie’s performance deserved the Academy’s recognition, but this year’s nominees’ work were powerful and well-deserving. The unforgiving shock wave, however, was Greta Gerwig being overlooked as Best Director. 

A Glimpse Backward

A film being nominated for best picture but not best director is an irony that will always mind-boggle anyone. And not just in Gerwig’s case, but also back in 1992, with Barbra Streisand getting snubbed out of the Best Director category with The Prince of Tides. Billy Crystal said it best in his opening song of the 64th Academy Awards, “With seven nominations on the shelf, did this film direct itself?”

To make it even worse – let’s go way back in time, when the Oscars started in 1929. Did you know only three women have ever won the award for best director? Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker in 2009, Chloé Zhao for Nomadland in 2020, and Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog in 2021. And only 8 women in total have been nominated in almost 100 years! If that’s not a shock of reality, I don’t know what is.

At least this year’s Best Director category included one female director, Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall, a well-deserved recognition. But to not add to the nominees list the director with the biggest box office movie of 2023 and cultural reset is, to say the least, a big blow. 

More than just a doll

Hollywood’s lingering sexism might’ve played a role in it, and people have definitely been buzzing about it but let’s dive even deeper. Because yeah, sure, Barbie got a nod for best picture. But did the Oscars really get the movie? Probably not. They couldn’t see past the pink shiny toy-based flick exterior. 

They just labelled it as another funny popcorn movie, while missing the underlying plot and the cleverness of the world depicted through Gerwig’s eyes. I mean, come on, the main character’s name was Stereotypical Barbie… It’s the most blatant reference to women’s stereotypes in our society. But instead of the academy seeing the meticulous satire for what it was, they got stuck in rainbow-coloured glasses. I dare to say they missed out on Gerwig’s incredible imagination. 

Ryan Gosling said it himself “There is no Ken without Barbie, and there is no Barbie movie without Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, the two people most responsible for this history-making, globally-celebrated film.” 

God is a woman

In Voicebooking style, an honourable mention is the iconic voiceover in Barbie. The film brought back the cinematic technique that we don’t see that often anymore with a narrator presenting the doll. The omnipresent voice brings a Voice of God to introduce us to Barbieland and guide us through the history of Barbie dolls.  

The voice is done by the one and only Helen Mirren. Her vocal work goes far back as the supercomputer Deep Thought in ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy’. To even working in the animation world as Dean Hardscrabble in Monster’s University. And so on. Her vocal work perfectly matched the world of Barbie, and made the movie feel magical.

But okay, kenough about this. Let’s talk details. 

The Oscars of 2024 will take place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. This year’s 96th Academy Awards will be on March 10, at… Wait – let’s talk timezones: 

When will the 2024 Oscars be aired?

Where can I watch the 2024 Oscars live?

You can watch the 2024 Oscars on the live broadcast on ABC. If you are watching from the UK, it will be shown on ITV1 and ITVX. And the streaming options of the ceremony will be ABC News Live and Disney+. For online streaming, you can check out oscars.com, or the Academy social media accounts on YouTube, Tiktok and Instagram. 

And what are these so-called nominations? 

In case you’ve been missing out on all categories. Here is a list of every single nomination of the 2024 Academy Awards. Let us know your predictions and thoughts! 

Best picture

• “American Fiction”
• “Anatomy of a Fall”
• “Barbie”
• “The Holdovers”
• “Killers of the Flower Moon”
• “Maestro”
• “Oppenheimer”
• “Past Lives”
• “Poor Things”
• “The Zone of Interest”

Best actor

• Bradley Cooper, “Maestro”
• Colman Domingo, “Rustin”
• Paul Giamatti, “The Holdovers”
• Cillian Murphy, “Oppenheimer”
• Jeffrey Wright, “American Fiction”

Best actress

• Annette Bening, “Nyad”
• Lily Gladstone, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
• Sandra Hüller, “Anatomy of a Fall”
• Carey Mulligan, “Maestro”
• Emma Stone, “Poor Things”

Best supporting actor

• Sterling K. Brown, “American Fiction”
• Robert De Niro, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
• Robert Downey Jr., “Oppenheimer”
• Ryan Gosling, “Barbie”
• Mark Ruffalo, “Poor Things”

Best supporting actress

• Emily Blunt, “Oppenheimer”
• Danielle Brooks, “The Color Purple”
• America Ferrera, “Barbie”
• Jodie Foster, “Nyad”
• Da’Vine Joy Randolph, “The Holdovers”

Best director

• Jonathan Glazer, “The Zone of Interest”
• Yorgos Lanthimos, “Poor Things”
• Christopher Nolan, “Oppenheimer”
• Martin Scorsese, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
• Justine Triet, “Anatomy of a Fall”

International feature film

• “Io Capitano,” Italy
• “Perfect Days,” Japan
• “Society of the Snow,” Spain
• “The Teachers’ Lounge,” Germany
• “The Zone of Interest,” United Kingdom

Animated feature film

• “The Boy and the Heron”
• “Elemental”
• “Nimona”
• “Robot Dreams”
• “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”

Adapted screenplay

• “American Fiction”
• “Barbie”
• “Oppenheimer”
• “Poor Things”
• “The Zone of Interest”

Original screenplay

• “Anatomy of a Fall”
• “The Holdovers”
• “Maestro”
• “May December”
• “Past Lives”

Visual effects

• “The Creator”
• “Godzilla Minus One”
• “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”
• “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One”
• “Napoleon”

Original score

• “American Fiction”
• “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”
• “Killers of the Flower Moon”
• “Oppenheimer”
• “Poor Things”

Original song

• “It Never Went Away” from “American Symphony”
• “I’m Just Ken” from “Barbie”
• “What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie”
• “The Fire Inside” from “Flamin’ Hot”
• “Wahzhazhe (A Song For My People)” from “Killers of the Flower Moon”

Documentary feature film

• “20 Days in Mariupol”
• “Bobi Wine: The People’s President”
• “The Eternal Memory”
• “Four Daughters”
• “To Kill a Tiger”

Cinematography

• “El Conde”
• “Killers of the Flower Moon”
• “Maestro”
• “Oppenheimer”
• “Poor Things”

Costume design

• “Barbie”
• “Killers of the Flower Moon”
• “Napoleon”
• “Oppenheimer”
• “Poor Things”

Animated short film

• “Letter to a Pig”
• “Ninety-Five Senses”
• “Our Uniform”
• “Pachyderme”
• “War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko”

Live action short film

• “The After”
• “Invincible”
• “Knight of Fortune”
• “Red, White and Blue”
• “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”

Documentary short film

• “The ABCs of Book Banning”
• “The Barber of Little Rock”
• “Island in Between”
• “The Last Repair Shop”
• “Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó”

Film editing

• “Anatomy of a Fall”
• “The Holdovers”
• “Killers of the Flower Moon”
• “Oppenheimer”
• “Poor Things”

Sound

• “The Creator”
• “Maestro”
• “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One”
• “Oppenheimer”
• “The Zone of Interest”

Production design

• “Barbie”
• “Killers of the Flower Moon”
• “Napoleon”
• “Oppenheimer”
• “Poor Things”

Makeup and hairstyling

• “Golda”
• “Maestro”
• “Oppenheimer”
• “Poor Things”
• “Society of the Snow”

The post A Pink Perspective on Hollywood’s Glaring Oversight appeared first on Voicebooking.

What’s next? In the next phase, we will come up with a new visual identity. And a new motto. Find your voice. In the meantime we have asked our British voice over Piers what thinks of Voicebooking.com and here is his answer:

Any feedback? Let us know! Get in touch with us via support@voicebooking.com! We are looking forward to hearing from you.

The post Quick Update appeared first on Voicebooking.

New: Voice Over Generator annual subscription

Have you used our Voice Over Generator before? By popular demand we have added a yearly plan to our existing monthly subscription. This could be useful for you, for example if you are regularly making guide tracks or when you’re looking for a budget friendly voice over option.

A monthly subscription costs €4,99, a yearly subscription costs €49,99. It allows you to create unlimited, license free voice over recordings that you can use worldwide. The yearly plan saves you two months of costs compared to a monthly subscription. Smart choice, isn’t it.

Do you not yet know about our Voice Over Generator? Test out your voice over scripts quickly and easily? Copy-paste the script into the Generator and test away. The Voice Over Generator allows you to put emphasis on specific words or phrases and add pauses wherever you want.

It’s the fastest way to test a voice over for timing and impact. Try our Voice Over Generator now, the first project is free.

The post Latest news at Voicebooking appeared first on Voicebooking.

Request availability

Do you have a project that requires specific planning for the recording of a voice over? Ask the voice over. The voice-over immediately receives your request through the platform and can let you know as soon as possible if he has time. You will be notified by e-mail. After that you can turn your request into a briefing.

Request samples with multiple voices

You could already request one sample per voice-over. If you wanted to invite several for a sample, it was copy/paste, copy/paste… From now on, that’s no longer necessary. Log into Project Pages, go to the voice, select ‘request sample’ and the rest is easy. The voice-over sends you a sample with the desired tone-of-voice. Happy with the sample? Then you can immediately convert the sample request into a briefing.

Missed our previous updates?

It’s busy on our development front. At the end of December we launched 4 handy features for your voice and audio projects. For example, you can now create handy favourites lists and share them with your colleagues or client. 

And we updated the Voice Over Generator. In version 2 you can now also highlight specific words, add pauses and save the result as a project. Try the Voice Over Generator, completely free and royalty-free, here.

More to come

We are very curious what you think of these developments. Do you have any wishes of your own? Or are there features you think are missing? Let us know about it! Maybe we can build it for you in 2021. We like to improve our platform to make finding the right voice-over as easy as possible.

The post Practical new features for you appeared first on Voicebooking.

Online Travel agency Booking.com produces hundreds of videos a year, from ad-spots for TV, to videos for YouTube and Instagram.  “We have our own team of producers which is responsible for making all commercial content”, says Carine van der Heijden, Head of Productions and Operations.

“When I first started we let the big ad-agencies take care of almost everything, but that wasn’t really sustainable. We wanted quicker turnaround times and to be more closely involved in the process. That’s why we now take care of things in-house and hire in directors, camera operators, and creatives as necessary.”

With the current set-up Booking.com was able to produce videos much quicker but localising all that content was still costing a lot of time. If you’re running a global booking platform, it is nearly impossible to avoid dubbing your videos. Whether we’re talking complete commercials, or one YouTube video, there are only a handful of countries in the world where you can still get away with just using subtitles. You almost always need voice-overs.

Until a few years ago, hiring-in voice actors for voice-overs was incredibly time-consuming, Carine explained: “It often meant a long search for a local voice via one of the translation department’s many Language Specialists. Once the right voice had been found for the script then, more often than not, the same specialist had to organise a studio to record in on the spot.”

Next the finished audio would be sent to headquarters in Amsterdam to be listened to and approved, and if it isn’t approved it’s back into the studio to try again. A laborious process, especially when you have to go through it 15 times in different languages. 

Voicebooking, a fast-growing online voice over platform based in Amsterdam, offered the solution. “They do not only just have a database of professional voice-over actors in more than 90 languages, they also provide advice about voice type, translation, audio mixing, and work with clients to get a script voice-over-ready. 

And it’s really fast. You organise everything yourself on the online platform (or have it done for you) and within one working day (sometimes even in a matter of hours), you have the audio in hand, in just the right tone of voice and the right accent.”

Radio ads

It’s not just companies that produce a lot of video who lose a lot of time hiring voice actors and localising their content. Those making radio ads, podcasts and managing music streaming services run into similar problems too.

Whoever uses the free version of music streaming service Spotify, will hear ad-spots. There are enough advertisers interested, including plenty of A-brands, but they often run into practical problems. It is not often that they have a ‘clickable’ spot ready to roll which is suitable for the Spotify system. 

Spotify and Voicebooking first thought of the solution to this ten years ago now. Since then, Voicebooking annually produces dozens of commercials for the streaming platform’s advertisers. The advertisers deliver a script and within just 1 or 2 days the complete commercial is ready.

The Voice of K’NEX

Larissa Louwman, Marketing Brand & Development Manager of toy company K’NEX and BOTI, has been a client from the very start, right back when Voicebooking was still just a small startup. “We develop our own toys and sell third party brands like Pokémon and K’NEX. Jente (CEO Voicebooking, red.) has been the Dutch voice of the K’NEX commercials for years. Over the years we worked with them more and more. Now, we might deliver an American commercial, for example, and Voicebooking delivers us a German and French version, complete with customised packshots.”

For Larissa the most important reason to work with Voicebooking is that she has the feeling that, despite the company’s growth, the service is still just as personal: “Never arrogant. They listen and now know exactly the kind of voice I want for a brand like Pokémon. Often they will also come with suggestions for ‘voice-technical’ improvements in a script. And, if I want, I can always listen along with the live recordings too.” 

Liza Rietvelt, one of the producers at Booking.com, finds it a huge benefit that she can listen along. “Very often I sit in the studio in Amsterdam next to the audio technician while the voice over actor records at home or sits somewhere else in another studio recording the text. In this way we can make adjustments very quickly and make sure that the tone of voice matches our brand strategy.

Sometimes, for example, we record a script with both a male voice over and female voice over actor so that we can do A-B testing. The Language Specialist will always listen along too. It may be that during the recording you find that the Russian version of a text is much longer than the original. In that case you may need to adjust a script at the last minute. To make a good voice-over you sometimes need to puzzle it out a bit.”

The market of voice over actors with a home studio has exploded over the last couple of years, making it hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. You just need to hope that the voice over actor has good equipment at home and that the final recording will sound just as good as their polished demo.

Find just the right voice in a language which you don’t speak yourself. “Every country has its own tone and sound”, says Liza from Booking.com. The critical gaze of a specialist who listens to you closely, is really valuable then. Larissa from BOTI: “Thinking and moving with you. That’s Voicebooking’s strength.”

The post ‘To make a good voice over you sometimes need to puzzle it out’ appeared first on Voicebooking.

In this video I talk about the reason why storytelling always beats facts.

Do you have any questions after watching this video? Or do you want to share your 6-word-story? Let us know in the comments.

The post Why storytelling beats facts appeared first on Voicebooking.

Adam and Eve

The phenomenon of authority is definitely nothing new. The oldest and biggest religious authority in the world is probably God. In the Old Testament Abraham listens willingly to the demands of God even when he asks him to stick a knife in the heart of his own son. Adam and Eve let themselves be sent out of paradise without protest. It’s baked deep into our culture that we gladly listen to someone with proven leadership qualities. We have learned that it yields structure, productivity and progress; and we prefer that to anarchy. Let’s take a little look at how we can apply that authority principle when developing content.

Signs of authority

If you want to use authority, you need to know what signals belong to it and how we react to them. The uniform of officials is a good example. But even the difference between a man in a T shirt and jeans, as opposed to a man in a suit, is enormous. Research suggests that people follow a jay-walking man´s behaviour quicker if he is wearing a suit than when he is in leisure wear. Have a good think then about what the people in your productions need to wear.

 If you have someone in a video telling the audience something, it helps if they have a title which we attach values to. So, choose a real expert, someone we can look up to. Or at least think long and hard about how you introduce that person. ´Looking up to´ can be taken pretty literally in this context actually. Did you know that we generally estimate a professor to be taller than a student? Research shows the estimated height difference is 6cm, while in reality the professor may actually be shorter than the student. 

The seeming authority of bigger cars can have an influence on our behaviour too. Researchers found drivers honk the horn 50% more often at small cars who take too long to accelerate when a traffic light goes green, than at larger cars. Most of the time we are completely unaware of these effects but you, as a script writer, can make good use of them.

Dangerous shocks

Perhaps you are familiar with the famous 1963 experiment into authority conducted by Professor Stanley Milgram when he was at Yale University? As a professor in a white lab coat he gave study participants the task of delivering electric shocks to a student whenever the student gave the wrong answer to a question. With every incorrect answer the student received a more painful shock, until they demanded and begged for it to stop, before hopelessly banging on the door. Two thirds of study participants ignored this and continued to deliver the dangerous shocks. 

Fortunately the students were in on the act. The research suggested how slave-like we are when it comes to following authority. Of course, we probably knew that already, from the rise of Nazism in Germany decades before. In content it can be a bit less shocking! But, never underestimate the power of a professor, or someone else, in a lab coat!

Relativise

The opposite of an authoritarian is someone who relativises. But if you combine these things, you get an even more powerful effect. How does that work? A person in a position of authority who is very self-confident and exhibits expertise, can make us doubt them at a certain point. It sounds too good to be true that this person knows so much and is never wrong. That’s why their story becomes stronger as soon as vulnerability or failure is included. The evidence for this can be found, for example, in businesses who took responsibility for their failings in their annual reporting, a year later they were found to be worth more than those businesses you didn´t. So, in addition to authority do play with humanising and relativising. It makes your story far more convincing.

Authority and reciprocity

Relativising in combination with authority works well then. And the same goes for combining multiple principles from this Positive Influence series. Restaurants are a great place to test them out. Good catering staff often know precisely how to get their clients in just the right mood to order more and give a generous tip. In one study a waiter was so ´honest´ in telling his guests about particular dishes on the menu – that they weren’t so good today as normal, because of problems in the supply chain – that they felt pretty much obliged to do something good in return; he had after all given them a heads up about a potentially bad choice. Ordering the expensive wine was an easy choice then, as was leaving a large tip. In your story, to combine authority with freely giving something of value away, whether that is something physical or good advice. In that way you trigger the instinct to reciprocity and you can steer that in your desired direction.

In short then, following authority is part of human nature, and you had better take account of it when you want to tell a story. Are you, or do you know, an expert who can talk with true authority? If so don’t be shy of deploying that knowledge. Look too at which authority signals you can include in your script to give its power of persuasion a boost. Try to build in a bit of relativising in as well, for example in the form of self-deprecation or humour. And give your viewer, listener or reader something which makes them want to do something in return. Good luck!

About this series

The blog post series ‘Positive influencing’ by Voicebooking explores the psychology behind influencing. The goal is to attract and persuade your readers, viewers and listeners, not manipulate or mislead them. The series is based on the six fundamental principles of persuasion, as researched and described by Robert Cialdini, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University and Stanford University.

The post Scriptwriting – Using authority to your advantage appeared first on Voicebooking.

1. The Tupperware party

Back in the day housewives used to come together for Tupperware parties. Tupperware made handy plastic storage boxes for everything and anything. In a shop you would be hard pressed to find them, because the boxes were only for sale during ‘parties’ in people’s homes. That a cosy, social evening with friends and family is an optimal setting for sales seems to have been the case for decades.

During one of these parties there was careful preparation made up to the moment of sale. With games where you could win nice prizes and everyone could hunt out a prezzie from the lucky dip (the reciprocity principle from episode 1 of this blog series, on making more persuasive videos). The discussion would be steered so that those who already used Tupperware could enthusiastically tell everyone about it.

An evening like that, full of friendliness and sympathy was not just a party for attendees, but for the sales department at Tupperware too. It is a good idea then, to place your story, product or service in a trusted and friendly setting.

2. Gain trust

You can also build up that trusted feeling of the Tupperware party online. With the emphasis on build up, because it doesn’t just happen overnight. ‘Trust is a fragile thing – hard to earn, easy to lose.’ In other words: you need to carefully build up a relationship because [otherwise] just one misstep can, unfortunately, mean that you lose it again.

So, take your time for regular contact. For example through a series of blogs or vlogs that you share with your target audience. On the basis of their reactions you can increasingly personalise your follow-up. Until the time comes that there has been sufficient trust and sympathy built up to get together and talk business.

It’s good therefore to screen your content now and then. Is it made up of lots of individual items or is there a structure to it?

3. Sympathy for the car salesman

Car salesmen are known as a type to watch out for. Slippery guys who will try to sell you a car which is just too expensive. Still, we can learn from them. Firstly, they encourage sympathy by appearing perfectly groomed. Countless studies have shown that people with a well dressed, well cared for appearance fare better than others.

Whether we’re talking about salespeople, job applicants or life partners. It can make the difference in salary of up to 15%: calculate your profit. It extends so far that handsome men and women have been known to get lesser punishments for comparable offences than less tidy types. OK, we’re getting distracted, back to our car salesman.

His second sympathy-based tactic is that he is always on your side. He will look for as much common ground as possible. He will take a good look at the car that you want to trade in and start asking about your kids (child seat in the back), about golf (golf set noted), or camping (noticed your tow hook).

He is talking about kids, golf and camping because he knows that people who like the same things, often find each other sympathetic. But he will take it a step further too.

In his attempt to get you over the line he will conspire with you against his boss; he’ll sort the luxury interior for you, the metallic paint, or an extra set of tyres at no extra cost. How nice is that? In short, make sure you’re well dressed and tell them a story that shows you to be ‘one of them’.

4. Sympathetic associations

In addition to the friendly atmosphere of the Tupperware party and the like-mindedness of the car salesman there are loads of other things you can do to arouse sympathy. Cooperation for example. Research conducted in primary schools into the problems of integration between children with different ethnic backgrounds showed that the competitive nature of education was counterproductive.

It stimulated ‘us versus them’ thinking. Through cooperative learning, in which working together was stimulated, preemptive judgements vanished and friendships emerged. Go for the interaction. Challenge. Invite. Start a dialogue. In short, choose a call-to-action that directs towards partnership. It works!

5. Sympathy comes from the stomach

And lastly, the tastiest form of sympathy. Because even if the majority of communications and deals are conducted online, don’t forget that face to face can do wonders too. Preferably whilst enjoying a drink and a bite. It is an enormous sympathy-creator. A coffee or lunch invite is always a more appealing call-to-action.

That can start with a video. If we see people enjoying food and drinks, as viewers, we also get a warm, cosy feeling. That effect is called ‘appetite appeal’. A story placed in a charming and tasty context can reckon on plenty of sympathy as a consequence. 

Get to work!

Thus, you can positively influence your viewer and listener by letting your most sympathetic side show. Make sure that you and the people in your web videos and on social media posts look good. Build trust with your reader or viewer as quickly as you’re able.

Look for common ground, so that you become like-minded. After a while, take your prospective clients out to eat and find a way to work together, even if it’s just a small project. Good luck and enjoy your dinner!

 About this series

The blog post series ‘Positive influencing’ by Voicebooking explores the psychology behind influencing. The goal is to attract and persuade your readers, viewers and listeners, not manipulate or mislead them. The series is based on the six fundamental principles of persuasion, as researched and described by Robert Cialdini, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University and Stanford University.

The post Want more reactions to your web video? Be nice! appeared first on Voicebooking.

Data-driven creativity

It is of course the age-old law of marketing: put the consumer front and centre. With the flood of data these days, that is becoming increasingly easy. The possibilities of technical production also allow us to maximise our response to the needs of the client. With dynamic audio you make use of all the data points known about your target audience. A medium such as Spotify for instance, knows the gender, musical preference, mood, device and location of the listener. You can supplement this data further with information from other places, such as the weather, travel news or current affairs.  

Personalised Advertising

OK, so you know quite a lot about the person who is listening to your audio ad. You can optimise how you use this in your messaging so that the listener feels as if the spot has been specially made for them. You can imagine just how much that increases its impact. Let’s take a look at a concrete example of dynamic audio. A brand that sells ready-made pasta sauce, plays on the listeners who are currently stuck in traffic by directing them towards their website where they can find quick and easy recipes. A DIY store serves one city, where the weather is pleasant, their garden assortment. And in another, where it’s raining, their DIY offers. In this way your campaign can literally change with the weather! 

Surprising spots

Because dynamic audio is not yet being used at scale, you can really surprise your listener with a personalised spot. Telecoms provider O2 used geo-location to play an ad about the Samsung Galaxy 8 to drivers, just as they were passing a billboard about the smartphone. Gatorade played customers a spot about their drinks during their workout. KLM and Deliveroo tested personalised audio commercials on Spotify. And one rainy Saturday afternoon in Northampton, Virgin Atlantic broadcast a spot which told listeners just how they could escape that rainy Saturday afternoon in Northampton by buying a ticket in their sale:

Thousands of versions

Nice, that personalisation. But, with all the variables in the data you can end up with thousands of ad-spot varieties. On the production side of things, there is the task of recording all those varieties. Think of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sunny or rainy weather. Or all the major cities in a country. A technical partner ‘edits’ the spots as necessary so that you can really play on an exact moment. Precisely, programmatic advertising. Thanks to the high degree of automation it becomes possible to use tens of thousands of different ad-spots at the same time. 

Is it time for drinks? How would you combine the data of your clients with your messaging in a creative way? How would you mix tech and creativity together to craft a unique experience for your listener? Voicebooking and Spotify are on hand to help you develop audio ads that stand out and convert far more successfully than normal spots. Let´s get dynamic!

Want more to read? Find all of our ebooks here:
52 tips for writing persuasive voice over scripts
15 practical tips – The do’s and don’ts of in-house production
23 tips: here’s how to increase your submission’s chance of a film festival win
What to look for in a voice over who works remotely – A practical checklist for working with a voice actor online
E-Learning courses with impact – 20 practical tips for creating an effective e-learning course

The post Everything you need to know about Dynamic audio appeared first on Voicebooking.

We spoke to Diederik Van Middelkoop, Executive Creative Director of Amp.Amsterdam, the sonic branding company, a partner of Voicebooking. He gave us a number of inspiring voice search insights, fresh from the Côte D’azur.

What does the partnership between WPP and iHeartRadio involve?

Diederik: ‘The partnership that WPP and iHeartRadio are starting out on is called Project Listen. It’s goal is to discover what technical and creative possibilities audio holds in the new era that is swiftly headed our way. So, it’s concerned with traditional radio, streaming podcasts, live events and smart speakers. That last category in particular, because naturally there is going to be all sorts of things happening there.’

Where are we with Voice at the moment?

‘As of today there are 2.2 billion devices in circulation that can have voice control capacity. In the U.S. 32% of households have a smart speaker in the home. In our country that is only 6% of households at the moment. It’s expected that the penetration of voice assistants will happen many times faster than that of the smartphone.’

How are you responding to that yourself?

‘Just as WPP and iHeartMedia are working together to uncover the technical and creative boundaries [of voice] we have partnerships here too. For example at Amp.Amsterdam we are a part of EARR. That is a group of four companies, active in audio, engagement and conversation. Embot is allowing voice assistants and chatbots to talk like real people.

Readspeaker is working on an innovative text-to-speech solution. And Robocopy develops dialogue for chatbots and voice assistants which are helpful, realistic and persuasive. Together we help brands to decide what their sonic branding will sound like. Because without images, visual identity and physical presence, there are only voices, sound effects and music to represent your brand.’

What else was of note at Cannes?

‘Another talking point at Cannes was the effectivity and measurability of communication efforts. We in the music industry need to formulate a good response to that too. That’s a challenge, because music is emotion and is very dependent on that gut-feeling. The composition or purchase of music for example requires large investments. So brands want to know, preferably in advance, what ROI can be expected. So, we’re also in talks with parties that offer predictive analysis, such as neuro-imaging.

We see at Cannes that consultants are increasingly making their presence felt. They fulfil a different role for clients than communications agencies, I think. They approach things more from the business goals angle, on a continuous basis and are more results oriented. Fortunately, we have good insight into what our client’s client would like to listen to and how to get the best effect, thanks to the data we get from our partner Universal, for example.’  

Is the focus more on creativity or more on tech?

‘You still see really good ideas in film and print at Cannes. But increasingly creativity has to do with innovative uses of technology. That should never be a trick, in my opinion. It has to be really relevant. Simplicity and transparency are also key-words. From my point of view, an invention such as the gender-neutral voice misses the point. It feels strange if you can’t recognise a voice as male or female. It’s not human, because we don’t recognise it.

It is impressive that the technology can already do that, but who does it serve? In The Netherlands you see brands such as Albert Heijn and KLM are already doing good things with voice assistants. They’re able to offer logical and accessible services; like doing your groceries or searching for flight information. However, if it’s about financial matters or your health, then it gets more complicated. How does your brand sound? Do you choose a male or female voice?

How fast and with what tone of voice should the actor speak? How do you have a conversation that feels natural and which lets the client hear what they need to as quickly as possible. It is in large part virgin territory and really fascinating to explore with our clients.

How do we defend ourselves against Amazon and the like?

‘I think we’re now seeing a race between, on the one hand, brands that want to position themselves well in the voice search domain and on the other hand, e-commerce parties like Amazon who actually cut them off because of their consumer ownership. In the U.S. 50% of every dollar spent online already goes to Amazon.

And what do you see then? Take for example Duracell batteries. A brand that in the physical world is market leader among batteries, but if I order via Amazon I get an own-brand or another brand altogether. Then we’re talking monopolies and unfair competition.

The reality is actually: convenience always wins. We see it too with social media. We know that our data is being sold as a commodity. We know that we’re being manipulated. Still we can’t part ways with social media because it is so handy, and so much fun. We see the same struggle with voice search. Now in the U.S. and later in Europe and The Netherlands.’ 

In short, there are new routes emerging in the customer journey; a totally new touchpoint that compels brands to develop a voice-first strategy. For anyone interested in experimenting, Voicebooking can offer the voice over generator. With it you can quickly generate different voice overs and test them out, for free, to see which works best for voice search.

Music, voice and sound have enormous power to make contact with people in an emotional way. For brands this offers big opportunities. If you would like to chat more about them, you’re welcome at Voicebooking and our partners, including Amp.Amsterdam, the sonic branding company.

Want more to read? Find all of our ebooks here:
52 tips for writing persuasive voice over scripts
15 practical tips – The do’s and don’ts of in-house production
23 tips: here’s how to increase your submission’s chance of a film festival win
What to look for in a voice over who works remotely – A practical checklist for working with a voice actor online
E-Learning courses with impact – 20 practical tips for creating an effective e-learning course

The post Cannes film festival: Voice over developments appeared first on Voicebooking.