Amir Jirbandey, growth lead at Papercup, discusses why localisation is key to increasing international reach, and how the companys work with dubbing Sky News content has been crucial to expanding to its non-English speaking audiences in the past 12 monthsBy Contributor
Published: August 19, 2021
Amir Jirbandey, growth lead at Papercup, discusses why localisation is key to increasing international reach, and how the company's work with dubbing Sky News content has been crucial to expanding to its non-English speaking audiences in the past 12 months
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As technology evolves, so do the opportunities that come with it. Forward-thinking organisations are looking to technology to better understand how they can achieve international reach using local content. While companies have been internationalising content for a long time, the demand for truly localised content is rising. Driven in no small part by the big streamers (Netflix and the like) that are looking to dub content in multiple language options to increase their audiences.
A huge number of organisations looking to increase the reach of their video content globally are turning their attention towards AI as the solution to localising video content at scale. While subtitles are still popular and relevant, other localisation methods like automated dubbing, are becoming more accessible in terms of cost and delivery times, and they're changing the market.
Why localisation, and why now? It's to be expected that video consumption continues to increase, not just because we've all been inside on our phones for the majority of the last year. According to Cisco - by 2022, online videos will make up more than 82 per cent of all consumer internet traffic - 15 times higher than in 2017.
This means that companies are having to consider the user experience when it comes to the production and distribution of video content, now more so than ever. With a number of different platforms available to them, it comes as no surprise that making the most of video content is a priority for over half of businesses.
While creating local content for a local audience would be the optimum solution, this is not always feasible across businesses, so many more are turning to automated localisation methods to reach more people at scale.
Making the most of pre-existing content The key for many businesses may lie in the content they already have. Instead of looking to spend time on creating new content for new audiences, businesses should look to their pre-existing content that is serving an important business purpose, and focus on localising this content for international audiences. For many organisations, the pre-existing content they have has reached a strong audience segment in its native market. However, the key opportunity lies in the many more audiences this content can reach thanks to localisation.
An example of this is the content owned by media companies. Many news and media organisations have been expanding their footprint by syndicating content and distributing on new digital platforms. However, there is only so much incremental optimisation you can do to increase your reach in a given market.
Subtitling being used as stop gap and traditional dubbing not an option due to its cost and sluggish turnaround time, means they are now turning to new technologies to achieve scalable and accessible localised content that reaches new audiences without the need to develop new content. Like magic now they can double or triple their back catalogue and speak to whole new territories.
In our work with Sky News, we did just that.
Working with Sky When we partnered with Sky News, their pre-existing video content from its UK newsroom had achieved strong reach across a number of platforms. While this was a vital goal for them, they were now looking to expand their audience. The content they had created was limited to English-speaking audiences, despite being of a global interest, meaning that the obvious next step was localising this content for other regions.
Sky News wanted to translate its pre-existing, award-winning content into different languages at scale, in particular, its Spanish-speaking audience. Papercup was able to partner with the media giant to use its AI-powered video translation solution to repurpose this content for its new audience in the target language.
Papercup has been able to dub this important content into Spanish for a LATAM audience, and in doing so has seen the content go viral, particularly in regions that are not necessarily able to access trustworthy news sources. Since then, Papercup has been working with Sky News to ensure their content is quickly and accurately translated for their Spanish speaking audience, bringing the award winning content to new territories and untapped audiences.
Levelling up It's clear that localisation is a crucial step for businesses who want to expand internationally.
By making the most of pre-existing content with localisation, businesses can look to reach new global audiences, thanks to technology that can seamlessly dub content into other languages. The integration of technology enables businesses of all sizes to take advantage of new opportunities that can see them expanding their reach, and developing their content in a more sophisticated way. While there is a continued discussion on the benefits of dubbing vs subtitling, it is clear that audiences are engaging with dubbed content in a way that hasn't been seen previously. Shows on Netflix such as Money Heist and Lupin are bringing dubbed content to new audiences with high viewing figures, becoming some of the most watched content on the platform.
It's important for businesses to recognise that localisation doesn't need to be cost-intensive. P
