Do you like your voice?
When we find ourselves wishing that our voice was a little deeper, or slightly clearer, it’s easy to forget that millions of people around the world rely on software and devices to speak in a generic voice that sounds like it belongs to a robot rather than a human.
Startup company VocaliD addresses this problem in a recent online advertising campaign that puts a spin on the classic story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In it, a speech-impaired young girl named Goldivox sets out on an adventure to find the voice that’s just right for her.
An interactive version of the video – found at VoiceofGoldivox.com – is where the campaign really comes into its own.
In the fairy tale, viewers must speak the words into their microphone to keep Goldivox’s story unfolding.
“Goldivox is one part fairy tale we all know and one part a story that many of us never imagined,” says VocaliD founder and CEO Rupal Patel. “As we understand Goldivox’s need to find a voice that fits, we discover that each one of us has the power to share voice.”
The intention is to raise awareness of VocaliD’s Human Voicebank project. Contributors are asked to read a range of short phrases that cover all the sounds made in their language, and these recordings can then be used in the text-to-speech devices employed by the speech-impaired.
Since its launch just two years ago, 12,000 people from 110 different countries have donated their voice to the project, culminating in nearly 4.6 million sentences.
The campaign was created by Saatchi & Saatchi New York.