A Finger Lickin’ Good Experience!

I am happy to announce that I performed the voiceover for the latest KFC campaign in Egypt. And as I usually do, I will try to share my experience with this project to help out all the aspiring voiceover talents out there. so I will assume that I was interviewed by one of these aspiring talents and I will share the experience in the form of Q&A’s.

So how did you land this job?

Well, I’ve landed this job through THE ARABIC VOICE studios in Egypt which is one of the leading voice production and localization agencies in the region. I am already one of the talents in their voice bank and my voice was sent among several other voices while they were casting for the ad and accordingly the client chose me.

Some new talents like me might find it difficult to reach out different studios and casting agencies, so what do you think about that?

Is there anything in life that is not difficult? Just like any job, voiceover needs a huge amount of work and effort and especially in marketing your voice. I knew Ahmed who is the founder of the ARABIC VOICE studios 5 years ago while recording a project for an advertising agency and since then we have worked together in many projects. I always advise young talents to go out and get to know people, seek different opportunities to record in different places and with different sound engineers. This is crucial to gain experience and knowledge and to market yourself as a voice talent. I understand that due to the current circumstances of the Corona Virus pandemic it is not recommended to do so, but you have to keep that in mind once you get to start meeting others more regularly. Off course being present digitally is important but when you are in a specific market, you need to play by its rules. In the Egyptian market in specific, people prefer physical meetings and getting to know everyone in person not just virtually. I get really frustrated when I see aspiring young talents channeling their energies towards mastering their home studios while they need to be out there gaining experience and showing people their skills. I can assure you that working in different studios have benefited me a lot in terms of gaining experience and marketing my voice than trying to master my home recording. So you need to exist digitally and on ground, it is a huge amount of work but it is work at the end that you need to do to be able to compete.

So how was the session tell us more?

Well, the session was directed online through the agency that sent the project to Ahmed, which is one of the biggest agencies globally but through its branch in Dubai.
First they showed us the ad to get the feel of it and what is required, then the creative director explained what needs to be done in terms of the performance since there are different characters in the ad. I performed the guy won the auction and also performed the call for action line at the end of the ad. We gave them different performances according to their direction and I am glad that we were able to give them what they were looking for at the end. What caught my attention is the insistence of the creative director to have the word ” Kentucky” spelled like the Egyptians do and not as it is pronounced in English for example. His explanations was that he needs to give buyers the feeling that this is your Kentucky brand that you buy from every week and it doesn’t look or sound unfamiliar to you, because being unfamiliar is scary and could create a hidden barrier between the brand and the buyer.

Finally, I hope that this short interview has provided the aspiring talents with some insights that would help them in their voiceover journey. Good luck fellow Artists!