Stemzoeker

Marianne Dubois, who describes her company as ‘a model agency for voices’, founded her voice-over agency Stemzoeker in 2003. Hundreds of different voices can be heard on the website, in a multitude of languages. Marianne mediates between supply and demand of these voices: "A good voice-over is very important and it can make or break a message. More and more companies are seeing the value in this.”   The voice-over recordings find their way to radio and TV commercials, company presentations, e-learning, voice response systems etc. Actually, everything you need a voice for. Clients range from local companies to large (inter)national customers such as Ikea, Ziggo, Corendon, Adyen, Dyson and Hyundai which commission work directly or through production companies and advertising agencies.  Via the Stemzoeker website, a customer can select a voice himself or Marianne will come up with a suitable one. A recording can often be delivered within 24 hours. Stemzoeker features more than 50 languages including Dutch, English, German, French and, further afield, Japanese, Chinese and Russian.

European assignments

Stemzoeker has clients all over the world; some bring substantial contracts. The agency regularly arranges voices for the European Commission, in 25 languages for their animated videos. The International Court of Justice in The Hague needed more than 50 voice-overs, in as many languages, for a project. Marianne also has voices on her books that sound like famous stars. There is a video on YouTube featuring a Morgan Freeman soundalike. The more than six million people who have seen the clip think it really is Morgan Freeman speaking, but the voice-over is actually from the Netherlands.

Growth close to home

Currently 25 to 30% of the turnover comes from abroad. Marianne is looking closer to home for growth. "All of the work is via Internet which means different time zones play a role. I find personal contact with customers important. There is still a lot of potential growth for me in the Benelux. Internet is, and remains, an expanding medium for which continuous content is being produced. By focussing on customer growth in the Benelux, I can maintain variety in customer contact, online and face-to-face," says Marianne.

Export countries: Benelux, Scandinavia, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Poland, United Kingdom, USA, China, Australia