Lory Martinez, CEO of Ochenta Studios, works with individuals and companies to create and translate podcasts across multiple languages.
Her stories are fascinating to hear about the preferences across cultures in storytelling and the varied interests of people across countries.
Learn why you may want to consider adapting your podcast into other languages and how to do it in this information packed episode.
LINKS:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mija-podcast-english/id1480370918
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ochenta-stories/id1508889832
Connect with Wendy - https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendypease/
Connect with Lory on:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorymartinez/
Twitter - @ochentpodcasts
Music: Fiddle-De-Dee by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
ATTENTION: Below is a machine generated transcription of the podcast. Yes, at Rapport International, we talk a lot about how machine translation is not good quality. Here you see an example of what a machine can do in your own your language. This transcription is provided as a gist and to give time indicators to find a topic of interest.
[00:00:34] Wendy: Welcome to another episode of the global marketing show podcast. And I'm excited because today we're going to interview the somebody that's going to be talking about multilingual podcasts, but before we get to that, a big thank you to Rapport International for being a sponsor and here's their tidbit for the week.
[00:00:58] That's about planning a spa vacation. I just got back from vacation. So this seems appropriate. Did you know that bordering Jordan Israel and the west bank, the dead sea is the lowest point on earth at about 1400 feet below sea level with the salinity rate of 34%. The water is so dense with minerals that your body floats on the surface, the minerals enrich the mud of the dead sea, making both the water and a mud, a draw for the restorative health benefits.
[00:01:32] If you haven't been there, I haven't, I definitely need to plan a trip there. My mom went and she brought me back some of the sea salts with which I've thoroughly enjoyed. So enough of vacation back onto the podcast and learning, I'd like to introduce Lori Martinez. Who's the founder and CEO of Studio Ochenta. It's an award-winning multi-lingual podcast production company. That's based in Paris, the company adapts and produces podcasts and 26 languages and specializes in marketing adaptation for podcasts. So when you listen to Laurie speak, you can tell that she's not originally from Paris. So we're going to ask her about that.
[00:02:15] Welcome Laurie.
[00:02:16] Lory: Thanks for having me. Hi.
[00:02:18] Wendy: Hi, it's great to have you here. I'm so excited to learn more about what you do. So I am curious, how did you end up in Paris and where are you originally
[00:02:28] Lory: from? So I'm originally from Queens, New York and I studied French linguistics in college, and I wanted to use French after I graduated.
[00:02:40] I worked in public radio for a while and then decided that I wouldn't be able to speak French in the states. So I applied for a graduate program here in Paris. And after that I stayed, I've been here now almost seven years and yeah, that's, that's my Paris story. Oh,
[00:02:58] Wendy: that's fantastic. And was it hard to stay after graduates?
[00:03:03] Lory: No, not really, because I was one of the few students who actually spoke French before I arrived in France because of my degree. And so adapting to living in this country was a lot easier for me. And I found it. Yeah, it's just a beautiful place. And so I, I, it became my home.
[00:03:20] Wendy: All right. So, you know, I'm still on this vacation theme cause I was on vacation last week and talking about the spa, what our vacation things that we should do and Paris or France, if we ever get over
[00:03:32] Lory: there, I would say, um, Normandy is beautiful.
[00:03:38] Go to the hill. And I would say go to the south of France. I'm not going to give people the touristy things in Eiffel tower, uh, cause y'all already know. So I would recommend renting a car and driving around. There's some really beautiful cities outside of Paris.
[00:03:52] Wendy: Yes. Yes. There sure is. I, um, when I was in my mid twenties, I was, I traveled through a lot of the, a lot of Europe on a train and got to the south of France and that fantastic con and news I really enjoyed.
[00:04:07] So tell us about your company or tend to productions.
[00:04:11] Lory: Yeah, I started studio Trinza in 2019, right before the pandemic. It was very quickly something that I, I grew from being just me, uh, recording one show to being now a team of eight people. I'm very proud of that. And over the past couple of years, we've developed shows not only in the three languages that I myself speak because I started the company thinking, you know, I'm expanding the production I already do as an independent.
[00:04:38] No production of podcasts in English, Spanish, and French, my three languages moving on from that into other languages that we were getting requests for actually as people grow to see as being a multilingual company, that accepted languages from all cultures and creating programs and original series that also allowed us to represent Countries and identities that weren't necessarily my own.
[00:04:58] And it's been really, really rewarding to be able to highlight those voices through our programs and not just through our original series, which we produced ourselves but also through the series that we produce for our clients. And, um, and yeah, we're, we're super proud of, of what we've done.
[00:05:14] We've, we've been able to be awarded, uh, the Webbies and that the love, your words, which is the European Webbies. And we also received a European digital journalism award for one of the shows that we did with one of our partners. And it was a journalistic podcast as well. So we've done a range of projects and, and the languages that we've offered.
[00:05:32] I've gone from English, Spanish, French. Now we do German, we've done Danish, we've done Dutch, Italian and it's also very exciting for us to be able to show a representation for languages that aren't necessarily. Um, spoken by a large number of people. So we've done quite a few small series or short episodes in indigenous languages and small local languages from tribes and on the African continent.
[00:05:54] So that's been very exciting to be able to do we've done episodes and shown up for example, and that's something that I never thought we would do. And when he first started OSHA at that, but we've been very, very lucky to be able to expand as, as people I feel. I mean, I don't know about you, Wendy, but I feel like people are really accepting of this kind of global mindset and are more interested in content outside of, you know, what is in their country more and more, not just because of Netflix, but you know, with music and it's now podcasts.
[00:06:22] So we've certainly seen a growth of interest for that kind of programming in the past couple of years with agenda.
[00:06:28] Wendy: Okay. So explain to me more like I have a podcast and I do it in English. I, and I'm biased on this and I might have some insight, but I'm going to ask it because I want to hear your perspective.
[00:06:41] So I have a podcast, I do it in English. What's how would I even go about doing it in Shona? And why would I want to do that as a podcast host?
[00:06:51] Lory: So as a podcast host the question, wouldn't be, will I do it in Shona? It would be more, what is the audience, what audience could benefit from having this content and what is the added value for them in that new language?
[00:07:05] So a lot of people in the states will immediately think of Spanish as being a really valuable language because there's a lot of Spanish speakers in the U S and for that, I would say, you know, thinking about how your content could be valuable for the Spanish speaking listener. And that's the question to ask yourself before you even, you know, say, okay, how do I translate this now?
[00:07:23] It's what is the point of translating this for these people? Do they already have content that exists about this topic in their home language? How would my show make any difference in their listening experience? What, what is my, like, you know, how, what makes my show special? Why is it worth their time? If they already have their own content or if they don't have their own content, then thinking about how you can maybe make sure that this version of your show, as it exists in the new language will actually give them something that they don't have right now I'm filling a gap.
[00:07:56] So just know your audience is really the things before, before going into the logistics, logistics are a little bit, you know, you know, it can be frustrating. They can be, you know, translating and doing all the texts and finding a no host and dubbing your voice, et cetera, et cetera. That's technical stuff, that technical stuff isn't going to be.
[00:08:14] The thing that stops you. The thing that stops you is if you do all the technical stuff and you don't think about your audience, you're going to publish your show and no one's going to listen to it. So that's why it's always important to think about your audience first. Like why would I, why would that language speaking population care about your show at all?
[00:08:34] And then if you have the answer to that, if you can say, yeah, I know that they don't have a show like this, or yeah. They have show like this, but they don't have a show like mine, then you can say, okay, well maybe it's worth it to see if this audience could be another monetization point for myself and my brand.
[00:08:50] Wendy: It gives us an example of a client or two, and how they went through that process of thinking about their audience and picking a language.
[00:08:59] Lory: So well, we did a podcast with me tick and the beginning of 2020, it was a lockdown podcast and they had a podcast in French that was. Uh, kind of like a daily diary, kind of a guide for how to date during lockdown.
[00:09:15] It was a very short podcast around three minutes as formatted and hosted by a friendship Windsor. And they wanted to adapt it and make it for all the markets that were being affected by the lockdowns. Um, and it was a very timely podcast. And so the question about which languages was very much about, okay, where are the users that are affected by the same problem who would be interested in this content?
[00:09:38] So a guide to, you know, going on, you know, going on virtual dates during a lockdown would be of interest to everyone in their different markets. So we took his present in France, the UK, the Netherlands and Italy. And so we did all of those languages because it made sense for them to say to all of their users, Hey, we have.
[00:10:00] Guide for you guys. Um, and so in that sense, like from the very beginning, the content itself was very adaptable. So that, that definitely helped them think, okay. Yeah, automatically we can multiply this, but also in choosing the different markets, you know, they, they pick the markets that would still be in lockdown as well.
[00:10:16] So there were some moments where some of these markets were closed, like exiting their lockdown or, or, or entering one. And so we made, we thought about like the release dates and things like that, based on that.
[00:10:26] Wendy: Okay. What's the name of the company? Me tick
[00:10:29] Lory: me tick. It's a match.com in the UK. Uh, and it has a different name in the Netherlands, but the master company, like, you know, the global head of office is, is me.
[00:10:39] Ticket's a French startup. Well, it's no longer startup as a digital dating. Oh,
[00:10:45] Wendy: okay. Okay. Does that have anything to do with match or it's just
[00:10:48] Lory: like the parent company of match. It owns me. Okay.
[00:10:52] Wendy: Okay. And then they have it in each look in all the different countries. So they're continually putting out content to try to drive people to their websites.
[00:11:01] So they're not trying to monetize it. It truly is content
[00:11:04] Lory: to exactly. And it's almost like a, I would say if they made it as a part of a larger campaign, the music from the podcast was used in their advertising, for example, on television during this period. So it was definitely part of a multifold media project.
[00:11:22] It wasn't just a podcast and as they pushed it to users on their app and all these other multiple touch points for their users specifically, it wasn't for people who weren't necessarily on the app.
[00:11:33] Wendy: Yeah. Oh, that's a fantastic example that really does work. And then do they do other podcasts or do they work with you on anything else?
[00:11:43] Lory: So they're currently working on another podcast, but just for the French market at the moment, they haven't done any other podcast experiments there. That was an example from two years ago, I just gave you it was 2020. Yeah, but I can give you other examples of other brands. That's not a
[00:11:57] Wendy: problem.
[00:11:58] Let's hear another example.
[00:12:00] Lory: Well, I'm the humanities project that we worked on. I think, I guess this example is not so much about choosing which language, but also about how you present the languages. So the urinary, his podcast, uh, was cry like a boy. And so the podcast itself, uh, is about eh, toxic masculinity and how men across the African continent in different countries are defying stereotypes about masculinity in their specific countries.
[00:12:27] So each episode goes into different. Country. Right. And so there's two episodes, like a documentary episode, and then a question interview episode about one region in particular and about how, you know, a one specific group in that region is dealing with toxic masculinity in a really interesting way.
[00:12:45] And it's very specific, obviously it's, it's local. I mean, it's a global. Issue tox toxic masculinity, but it's also very local because it's talking about these various know specific groups. Right. And so the show was produced in English. So the full series was produced or like a boy in English. And then the other version of it.
[00:13:06] Your honor is, is a French company. They wanted to make it in French as well. And so from the beginning it was, uh, conversations about, okay, well, what would the title be in French? How do we adapt the English scripts that we are producing into French? And how can we make sure that it flows well? Like how can the storytelling be changed so that French listener will enjoy it?
[00:13:26] Because French, French journalism, like the journalism tone is not the same as an English tone, for example. And so the way that the stories were structured and episodes, sometimes we had to change the order of things for the French version. And the other thing is, uh, because each episode took place in a different country, uh, we also had local voices and so those voices had to be dubbed from the local language.
[00:13:48] So, you know, Kirundi and Brittany, uh, would have to be done to English and also to French. And so making sure that those. Little quips. And those little sections of the text would still be true to themselves in the new version. So, you know, coming from the English per produce piece and then adapting it into, uh, the French and we did it all at the same time.
[00:14:09] So, you know, we're producing the English version with the entire team that was working on this from France, the UK, and also like in the different countries. So we had someone in Liberia, we had someone in Burundi. It was quite the international project, but the great part of it was that we were really able to.
[00:14:27] Adapt the content as we were making it. So not so much taking something that existed already, but rather creating something that was already global. And we're very proud of it and it did get an award, so it was a success. And so we're very grateful that, uh, listeners enjoyed that experience and it didn't feel translated.
[00:14:44] That's one of the feedbacks that we got is that when, you know, listeners are checking it out in French, they're feeling like it's a friend show because we definitely worked with French journalists to work on the scripts and translate them and adapt them. So, yeah.
[00:14:56] Wendy: So one of the things that you said in the middle of that, a great story, cause your own news and then reaching out on all those different things on such a hot topic.
[00:15:06] You mentioned that journalism differs it. In France for versus English. And that was it UK, English, or U S English that was working on that. I would guess it's UK
[00:15:17] Lory: it's European English. It's the Globish if you will. Yeah, there's I mean, as a journalist myself coming from the American journalism side and my training is that, um, we were taught the inverted pyramid in terms of telling a story.
[00:15:30] Right. But with the French side, you get, it's more of a rectangle, so you have a lot of different details. You're not necessarily getting to the, to the heart of something very quickly, but what the cool thing is Well, I mean, when you're getting to the heart of something very quickly, but it's, it's a really interesting, you know, development of the story.
[00:15:50] It takes a little bit longer to get to it and then it's, it feels more complete by the time you get to the end. Whereas in this, in the English, you know, you're giving a lot of details at the top and you're getting to like the least important stuff at the end. And what ends up happening podcasts is actually something that crosses the two of them.
[00:16:05] And that we've found a really great balance of when we were putting together these, uh, documentaries because we really focused on, on a scene. And spaces. And so what we were making was documentaries that really immersed people into different moments. And so we would always start off with scenes, which would be almost a little French because the French would like to have this kind of artsy beginning and whatever, but having that artsy, you know, scene in the beginning and then going into the explanation right after for the English and then having the RCC in the beginning for the French, and then, you know, going into another scene a little bit quicker in the French version it's slight changes like that.
[00:16:47] But it's something that we definitely paid attention to as we're, as we're editing the episodes is making sure that like to the ear, it felt like something that they would hear by a local French podcast or, you know, um, and so that's something that we definitely paid attention to as we're kind of tweaking the scripts in both sides,
[00:17:04] Wendy: this that had an effect on all the different podcasts that you created.
[00:17:10] Because you had mentioned
[00:17:13] Lory: in the format, the format really we've worked on fiction, we've worked on documentaries, we've worked on interviews. It doesn't really make such a big difference on stuff. That's just straight up interviews because you know, an interview is, you know, back and forth. That's really not that complicated, but when it comes to narrative stuff, a lot of the times documentaries can be a little bit trickier because of this kind of storytelling structure that can work better in one language and not so well in the other language in fiction it's, it's, it's a whole nother thing and it just depends on what language you're adapting to.
[00:17:47] Wendy: Oh, interesting. So what, like fiction, how would you like give an example on there?
[00:17:53] Lory: I would say that, I guess, inefficient, you have to think about the audience even more because some things that are given for references. Chokes, et cetera, for one audience will not be for another audience and you have to either explain it or just cut it or change it completely.
[00:18:10] Um, and so one of the things that ends up happening with fiction a lot is that we have cultural readers who will go through it and say, no, this would offend my country. And so that person will, you know, give us a recommendation for how to change it, uh, to make sure that it reads local, you know that's the big thing that happens with fiction is that, you know, you create worlds, but that world might not be as you know, accessible to an audience, uh, because it wasn't made for them because you're writing it in one language.
[00:18:36] And so when you're doing it in another language, you have to think about, okay, how is that acceptable? Is it, is it necessary to explain this? You know, for example, we did an Arabic version of our flagship podcast, Neha and in the English version, there were a lot of explaining of Arabic words, right. Um, because it was part of the storytelling because you know, there's was an Arab American girl.
[00:18:57] Erik British, sorry. And, uh, she was explaining all these things about her culture, but like in the Arabic version, she couldn't explain all that stuff. And we had to like change her tone a little bit so that she wasn't so much explaining as much as just kind of living the poetry of her life. So there was a completely different kind of it was a completely different text and it was really interesting to work with our partners, our production partners on that, um, stout, which is a local podcast company in Egypt.
[00:19:23] We worked with, they're not in Egypt, they're in Oman. They're in Oman. Yes.
[00:19:27] Wendy: Right. So it's way more than, I mean, it really is a new production. It's just not taking it into multi-lingual podcasts. Is your, your scripts vary quite a bit. Byline.
[00:19:40] Lory: Yeah, they often do. They often do. I mean, we, we take great care in making sure that they work in the new language.
[00:19:46] Sometimes that means changing character storylines. Sometimes that means, you know, shortening a script or making it longer. Other times it, it just means, you know, tiny tweaks. Like I was talking about changing a scene or moving it a little bit further down. It's not that crazy. I'm going to have a change, but, uh, it really depends on the project.
[00:20:04] You always do custom custom editing basically for every single show.
[00:20:08] Wendy: Right. You would have to and have very local people involved in that.
[00:20:15] Lory: Yeah.
[00:20:15] Wendy: What else, what mistakes do you see clients doing when they think about taking their podcasts? Multi-lingual
[00:20:23] Lory: uh, I wouldn't say Hm. I guess like the first thing is a lot of the times.
[00:20:30] People jump into a language because they think it's trending, oh, I have to translate it now. And so they might just do the base space translation and expect for it to work really well, but it doesn't because, you know, they didn't think about the audience. They didn't think about how they were going to distribute it.
[00:20:46] You know, how are people who don't know your brand at all in this new country, finding your podcast? Like they didn't ask themselves that before. Translating. So that's, that's a mistake. And I find that at the moment, the biggest question for a lot of companies doing this is going to be that it's okay.
[00:21:01] I need to understand what the market is. We need to know how this is going to actually touch the audience. Um, what are the touch points? And, you know, is it worth it to do for my own interest in that market? So if they're, you know, trying to sell a product or something in that market, maybe it is worth it.
[00:21:18] But if they're just doing it to expand, maybe not, it depends. It really does. Um, and I would say if you're thinking about doing it, definitely ask yourself these questions because it's, it's, it's not worth it to produce and then blame the producer if ever that ends up not working out because you didn't get the information beforehand.
[00:21:36] So it's, it's much better to say, okay, I know I want to do this German market because I know the German market is like this and they like this kind of thing. Rather than, yeah, just expect. To be surprised.
[00:21:47] Wendy: How would you figure that out as a podcast?
[00:21:50] Lory: One thing would be to, uh, do research about local podcasts.
[00:21:54] So definitely understanding what podcasts are, the number one on iTunes. That's very easy to do. Go on apple podcasts, change the country and the corner of your apple podcast app. And you can choose a country and you can see what the top 10 podcasts are. Uh, interestingly enough, a lot of the top 10 podcasts are English speaking podcasts.
[00:22:12] So in some markets there, isn't a local version of your show and that might actually be of interest, for example And, and that's one way to do it. You can also check out charitable. You can also look at blogs, Google translates your internet. So it's not like language should be a barrier for you to find out something.
[00:22:29] Of course you could always go through an expert like myself, like agenda and, uh, we can do a report for you and then put together like a market research based on what your show is and what your brand is looking to do. And that is something that we specialize in or we can do, but there's also like for an independent, the base based minimum that you can do is that is, is Google search, um, ranking reports.
[00:22:53] Wendy: And what kind of companies are pod show, podcast hosts? Are you seeing translate the most? Is there a certain industry size of company location? I mean, how does your, your requests segment out, uh,
[00:23:12] Lory: Requests, but that's because, you know, in Europe everything's automatically translated because you have so many languages.
[00:23:18] So the mindset about translation is completely different in Europe. Whereas in the U S it's like, oh, should we even try in Europe? It's like, well, we should definitely at least have this in more than one language. Which is interesting. So there, there definitely is more interest there. There's a lot of global companies that have internal podcasts that they have for client for like their, what do you call it?
[00:23:36] Their employee, their global, global staff. And so they have to have a version of a show in Russia and Chinese Spanish, et cetera. And having that availability is also something that we work with, but it's, it's, it depends on the market, but I would say that it's pretty varied. Global company is, is really it.
[00:23:55] Wendy: Okay. So, so you're talking larger global
[00:23:58] Lory: companies. Yeah. Larger global companies. It's not so much startups, startups. Aren't going to do that. It's more global brands, people, uh, companies that have at least one footprint in another country so that when they do launch this thing and going back to the music example, you have a media manager and a PR company in your local market to promote your show because you already have a system in place to promote your program and your content and your media.
[00:24:24] So when you launched the show, it shouldn't be like launched into the editor, especially if you're a global brand. You know? So that is something that is actually really helpful for, for companies that are doing that. And you know, other other people who are already doing a lot of translation is, you know, for platforms.
[00:24:42] So Amazon and Spotify are doing quite a bit of that. I heard is already starting to do it. cause they're seeing that, you know, the global market is, is developing more and more. And, uh, you know, markets that didn't have any podcasts a couple of years ago are now having a boom monetization is following right swiftly.
[00:24:58] So, you know, they want to be the first ones there. And that's, that's really smart to be the first ones to get into the pie of the, of the global markets. And so that's, what's happening. What I'm seeing is, is, you know, there are specific languages that are of interest. You know, German is very interesting.
[00:25:14] Spanish is very interesting. And, and some of the other, you know, Asian languages like Chinese and Japanese are drawing attention because they have, they have really good podcast audiences already locally. So when you bring over, you know, American content and you translated into Japanese or whatever, it actually ends up doing pretty well.
[00:25:34] Because they're, they know what podcasts are already. Other markets don't necessarily have that, you know, you don't have to do as much pedagogy.
[00:25:41] Wendy: I heard, I don't know, a few months ago that somebody launched a podcast in India and they spoke one of the Indian languages and they started out in English and had a hard time getting a following. But then when he started broadcasting in his native language has listenership skyrocketed because there weren't that many podcasts and that language I'm sorry, I can't remember which one it was.
[00:26:03] And so he, he was able to develop a podcast that room's really geared towards the location. Do you track the statistics of the podcasts that you track and have you seen any perform better in other languages than they did in the original English original language?
[00:26:21] Lory: Yes, of course you know, some John are more popular in some markets than others.
[00:26:27] And so we've seen some shows have more success in one language or another, for sure. That's not a surprise. The other thing, when you're talking about the Indian and, you know, example there people will listen more in their local language, despite the fact that, you know, more podcasts are in English.
[00:26:43] This is a statistic that's changing obviously now, but because apple. American. And because all the podcasts in the beginning were English. A lot of countries only had access to English podcasts. And so of course they were kind of forced to listen to that. And if they didn't care to listen to that and well, whatever, you're not a podcast listener, but now local people are getting more access because, you know, programs like anchor, like people are making podcasts with their phones, even if they're not the best quality they're still in my language.
[00:27:10] And I'm going to appreciate that this person has made it in my language made by local person it's made by, you know, someone that I talked to. And so that is actually changing the game for a lot of markets that aren't necessarily very well established because now you have people who are making shows in those local languages.
[00:27:26] And so that's, that's going to be the thing to keep an eye on is that, you know, punk tests, languages that you wouldn't really expect, for example You know, a smaller populate language population in India Tamela, for example versus Hindi, there might be more people listening to podcasts and Temo because more people in Tamilnadu will have access to the ability to make more podcasts in that language.
[00:27:47] So that, that is going to be super interesting to watch. And then, and it's something that we'd pay attention to, you know, what are the popular podcasts in these markets? That's something that we're always looking at. Is it worth it to invest in that market? Is there monetization here or is it worth it to just experiment in that place so that you can be the first experiment?
[00:28:04] That's, that's something to think about as well.
[00:28:08] Wendy: Hm. Can you give an example of a client where you were surprised by how well another language did.
[00:28:16] Lory: I won't speak to clients because I don't necessarily have all of the, the data and I don't, I'm not at Liberty to share data, honestly. Um, but I will say that our shows when we do them in multiple languages, it's certainly surprised when something works better in an, in one language other than, than the other.
[00:28:33] Uh, we have this show called caper. We did an English, Spanish, German, and Italian, and it's a true crime series. And it's, you know, going into art heists around the world. Every episode is, you know, a different heist and looking at the analytics across the board, the number one is. Uh, Spanish, even in the show was originally in English.
[00:28:53] And the second insight that we got was that, uh, the number one episode for each show varied vastly like, you know, we had stories from the UK and an English version of the story from the UK was not the number one episode. It was the Chinese episode, for example. So, you know, thinking about that insight as well, it was like, well, would the English listener care more about an English.
[00:29:14] Not necessarily, but in Spanish episodes, they really enjoyed the Mexican episode. The most, that was the number one episode. The story of the Mexican heist, I believe, and the German the same, you know, all this, the Nordic stories, they really enjoyed them more than the stories that were, you know, us UK based and so on and so forth.
[00:29:33] So it's interesting to kind of already see across the board across the different languages which is the most popular show. Like, I mean, I guess like, which is the most popular version of it. And then also to see what do the audiences actually like to hear in those different markets? Like, what is the interests?
[00:29:51] You know, we, we can do this with agenda because we do cultural shows, right? So we're constantly, you know, presenting content in different in different languages and from international perspectives. And so like we can see how, you know, an Anglophone is going to react to a one story in a German is concept reactor, the same story.
[00:30:06] Wendy: That is so fascinating to me. And can you take that information that you gather from a show like caper and then extrapolate that and put it over into other shows or is the content and the language is so different that you're always just measuring to apply it to the show?
[00:30:27] Lory: No, we use it too, especially with originals.
[00:30:30] They're our playground. We like to experiment with our originals. And so we use that data to help us choose, to make other kinds of originals or, you know, we'll decide, okay. We know that the Germans really enjoyed this type of story. So when we make another original show in German, we'll be able to say, okay, we know what they like.
[00:30:47] This is what happened with Kapor. This is what we can do in this show. And also the strategies for promotion in each country are vastly different. So we also apply that to new shows regardless of what their genre is after the fact, you know,
[00:31:00] Wendy: All right. So tell us a little bit more about that and promotions.
[00:31:03] What do you, how do you promote and what do you see working that's different across countries?
[00:31:09] Lory: Let's it goes back to what I was saying before. You know, some countries are really developed in terms of marketing and like the U S crazy, crazy development of marketing, obviously. And you can promote your podcast.
[00:31:20] You can have ad space, you can do what you will pay for promo on platforms, et cetera, et cetera. Posts, feeds, hosts, uh, feed drops, that all of that. Um, there's already a communication and language around that in the us. There is not one in the same way in other countries, especially in Europe, because.
[00:31:40] Depending on the country, they might not have an interesting relationship with advertising. Like, you know, some, some countries do not like advertising, like as a part of their culture. Like Americans love ads. We love the Superbowl, but French people, for example, they they're not even to the ads. And so there might be more reticent to hear them, or might not react in the same way as an American.
[00:31:57] So these kinds of insights really help us to give like proper strategy to, to each show. And, uh, when it comes to advertising and things like that, you know, some markets like Germany have a very strong advertising market. And it's very easy to kind of put ads on, on one show or another and promote a series where as you know, I don't know in Spain, it's not as easy because there aren't as many shows and also the culture of advertising is different.
[00:32:22] So the way that I would promote on that would be a little bit different. I would go through, you know, newsletters or something like that and use press contexts. One of the benefits of which is that we do have a lot of press contacts across Europe because as a multi-lingual European company, even though we're based in Paris and, uh, we do have international languages that we work with and we have European clients.
[00:32:43] So we were able to connect with press around the world, which is really cool. And so we use that also
[00:32:49] Wendy: that you do press releases or your contacts to get them to do a story about it.
[00:32:55] And so let's take it back to kind of your experience and starting a international company. You said that originally, you thought you'd do English, Spanish and French because those are your languages. And then you got into some other languages. How, w w like, did you have any struggles that you went through with that?
[00:33:14] Or how did you evolve and then work
[00:33:17] Lory: through. It was wonderful experience to how it evolved. So let me tell you, Wendy. We, I started me here as the flagship show of magenta. It was a podcast that I voiced myself in English, Spanish and French. I wrote it. I translated it myself as well because I always spoke those three languages.
[00:33:36] And I also launched Magento with two other series with two influencers. So I knew that when I was launching this, I wanted to have an automatic audience with those two series. And you know, me home was an experiment that I was going to see if it worked and also to use it as a capacity kind of showing the capacity of agenda.
[00:33:54] Like we can produce in these three languages as I have been doing for now. Over 10 years is producing in those three languages. And so, you know, as I built my company, you know, I wanted to represent what I was already able to do. And that was what that show. And what happened with that was that the show did really well, like surprisingly really well, um, in all the markets and, um, something about the global story that it had, uh, and how different it was because no one had done multi-lingual fiction ever in the podcast space.
[00:34:25] I mean it was a surprise to everyone and as first to myself as well, to see how it worked in these different markets. And so. When it came to creating a SQL, uh, I did not want to continue to just, you know, doing the three languages that I spoke. I also didn't want to, you know, you do the same story because the story for the original series was on my own background.
[00:34:45] Right. I had created a fictionalized version of my family's immigration story. So I wanted to go in a different direction. And I knew as a part of my independent network of, of other producers, I knew another producer who spoke. Chinese and French. And so I talked to her about what could be this possible SQL from the show, and we decided together to work on the Chinese Mihai basically.
[00:35:09] And so the story in the second season was written in French, translated from French to English and then from English to Chinese and also from English to Spanish. So it was the foreign language version of me, how basically. And, uh, it was the first time I'd ever worked in a language that I didn't speak. I did not speak any Chinese.
[00:35:28] When I did this show, I edited the show myself completely in Chinese, even though I don't speak in Chinese. It was, it was a wonderful experimental time. I was very proud of. The team that we worked with as well. We had a really great partner in China who helped us make the show for Chinese listeners and, uh, edited the scripts with us.
[00:35:49] And you know what, we went through the legal side of it as well, because, you know, in China, certain content needs to be censored. So we needed to have it reviewed as well. And that part of it was also, uh, with that partner. And, uh, no, we had an amazing experience with the translator and all of that. And so that was the fourth language that agenda was doing.
[00:36:06] And we got an award for that version of the show and it went number one in China, again, because of this localization part of it. And it was number one on apple podcasts, like across all podcasts. It wasn't just like the fiction. It was the number one podcast. And so we were releasing. Excited to be able to share that with the world.
[00:36:25] And so I knew from that moment forward that I wanted to make agenda into a place where we could do these kinds of stories in any language. And so starting from that point, we basically started accepting stories from around the world. We created shows called language stories, where we crowdsource stories and voices in different languages.
[00:36:49] We created other other shows like culture verse, where we you know, another fiction series that allowed us to enter different cultures as well. And, and really going even further with my original, you know, vision of, of raising voices across cultures as much as possible. So now as you said in the intro, I mean, we're at 26 languages now, which is really a great accomplishment.
[00:37:10] And our team is full of multilingual people like myself and they all help us accomplish that dream. And, and we're so, so proud of, of everything that we've built with.
[00:37:18] Wendy: What a fabulous story. So you're originally from Queens, but your family immigrated from someplace that spoke Spanish. That's where you learned to speak Spanish.
[00:37:30] Lory: Yeah. I'm from my well I'm from New York. My parents both immigrated from Colombia in to New York in the eighties and they met each other there actually, they were separate. They separately immigrated. They met each other in New York. And so I grew up speaking Spanish at home and English in school. And actually the thing with Queens's, I don't know if she knew anything about Queens, but it's like a galaxy.
[00:37:52] I went to school with people from around the world. I, every other kid was an immigrant, like a kid of immigrants. So everyone spoke more than one language. In my high school, for example. And I learned a ton of different phrases from all these other languages, because, you know, I would go to this parent, this kid's house and they would be speaking Polish to the parents.
[00:38:09] I go to another, my friend's house should be speaking, uh, Portuguese or Vietnamese. And, and so I did, I was never, I never like felt that, that wasn't foreign concept to me to like hear people speaking other languages at all, because I grew up in that space. Like Queens is one of it's, it's one of the places in the world where it's the most languages spoken in, in like the smallest like landscape there's 800 languages in the Queensborough of New York, um, 800 languages.
[00:38:36] And so like, yeah, for me, it completely natural to go in this direction. And, you know, I talked to my friends back home. Now I've been in France for seven years. They're not surprised at all, but this is the direction my company took because I definitely grew up with that space and that vision.
[00:38:52] Wendy: Oh, that's fantastic.
[00:38:54] So that's, I was wondering how you learned Spanish, but that was almost a, a native language for you growing up then.
[00:39:01] Lory: Yeah, it was my first language. Actually. I spoke Spanish before I spoke English. I spoke Spanish at home, so I learned English at school. And so it's, my English is my second language, actually.
[00:39:12] Wendy: Okay. And then you started French in high school or middle school?
[00:39:17] Lory: Middle school? Yeah.
[00:39:18] Middle school.
[00:39:20] Wendy: Yeah. Yeah. So what about people who start podcasts? When do you think they should start thinking about adapting it for another language or.
[00:39:30] Lory: When or why, when and
[00:39:33] Wendy: why? Yeah. Two different things. When, because I often say that companies should start thinking about global marketing when they start or from the beginning, because they can make some poor decisions that will set them up later on for not easily to expand.
[00:39:52] But I think with what you've talked about with the audience, not every podcast should, so I'm kind of curious, curious about the when, and then it sounds like you have more to talk about on the Y
[00:40:05] Lory: yeah. Uh, I think when would be, when you have an established audience in your language and you know, you have a following, that's a significant community that you can say, okay, I have this community can maybe start asking yourself whether you want to have another community.
[00:40:23] 'cause that's the, that's what you're asking yourself. When you're asking yourself to translate, you're not asking yourself whether it's worth it to translate or am I going to make more money in this language? Not, and you're asking yourself if, if, um, do I have the capacity to do create an entire other community around.
[00:40:38] So that's something to think about if you're an independent and you're thinking about this question is like, do I want to make another community? Do I want, am I able to cater to that community? I'm able to communicate with them. And you know, what is my strategy with, with, with that community? Am I just going to do this as a translation and just leave it in the, in the, in the internet, in the web, throw it into the clouds?
[00:40:58] Or am I going to actually, you know, make it a thing for this? Am I going to great March for this community? Am I going to make it, you know, a new logo for this community? Am I going to a new slogan, a new version of me for this show, if it's a personal show. And so that's when, when the question of when is, is, you know, when you're asking yourself, when is that, you know, am I going to make another community?
[00:41:20] And the Y. I think honestly it has to be for a good reason. I always talk about the community because you know, if you're going to make it just to make more money, that's not the right reason. If your, why is I'm going to try to expand my audience. That's not necessarily the best reason to do something because that audience might not care about your content.
[00:41:39] And so the, the why has to be because I'm going to bring them something that they don't already have. That is why your, why has to be with purpose. You can't just make your, you know, your podcasts were translation because, oh, I think, you know, I think it might work. No it's because you know that in this market, there is a need for this thing, or there's a lack of communication about this thing.
[00:42:05] And I always talk about, you know, Americans, especially cause there's so many of us that are issued from immigrant immigration and who speak more than one language. Use that when I, I talk at conferences and I'm always like, you guys are super power, is that we're immigrants. And then we have other languages automatically.
[00:42:21] And we can definitely make another show of another version of our shows for that community, because those are your parents. Those are your cousins. Those are, those are other communities that you also interact with daily and that you might not think would be interested in your content, but they might be.
[00:42:36] And so the question would be, yeah, you're going to make this because it's worth it for them. And so that's, that's the big why,
[00:42:43] Wendy: right? Yeah. I love that because that's all marketing and podcast. Listenership is it's nothing about you and your metrics. It's all about the audience. And if you can figure out what something that audience would be really interested in, that's what will bring your success.
[00:42:59] And that's also, what's, what's what has to drive.
[00:43:02] Lory: Yeah. You know, when the time that it takes to translate and the time that it takes to and after show and the money that you'll spend, do you need to know that it's going to work and whether you're an independent or a brand, that question needs to be the first one you asked, what is your, why?
[00:43:18] Why are you doing this? And if your answer is satisfactory, then all the other work is not going to feel like work. It's going to feel like you're doing something for a reason and you're excited to do it.
[00:43:28] Wendy: You're excited and you're fulfilling a need for somebody else you're helping that.
[00:43:33] Lory: Exactly. And you know, and the final point to that is content-wise also thinking about, is your content also easy to translate?
[00:43:42] And just as a logistics question, just, you know, thinking about your show, if you're having an hour and a half show, there's a conversational podcast. It's not easy to translate that you might as well regroup, record new episodes with new guests who speak your new language. And that's a reality. And that's something to also keep in mind is like, if you were thinking about doing this, you have to also know, okay, what is actually realizable, like is a shorter version of my show.
[00:44:09] Maybe the best way to go about doing this, uh, or is, you know, a bilingual version going to be more interesting for me to do, uh, you know, these are the questions that you can ask yourself already once, you know, your, why you can think about, okay, what the actuality of doing this translation, would it, how am I going to do it for this audience?
[00:44:26] Like what is the best version and what is actually, you know, something that I can afford to do the time and, and yeah, the capacity to be promoting all of these things, but yeah. Is it doable? There are some kinds of shows that are not as easy to translate. Also subject matter that isn't as accessible for other audiences.
[00:44:42] I would say yoga podcasts, pretty easy to translate about a podcast about, I don't know,
[00:44:46] Street parking law in California. Is that, is that easy to translate? You know, is it useful for that to be translated? I don't know. I mean, if it's made by like the municipal of California and like, they want to address these Spanish speaking audiences there, then maybe the street parking podcasts can be made for the Spanish audience in that specific case.
[00:45:08] But you know, not necessarily for the French audience, you know what I'm saying? Like that's too specific for California.
[00:45:15] Wendy: Right, right, right, right. So, right. So if you know your audience and you're trying to educate Spanish speakers in California, that's good and easy. But if you're trying to launch a podcast that would reach out to other speakers, it's not worth doing it.
[00:45:30] Yeah. Isn't that interesting?
[00:45:32] Lory: Yeah. And
[00:45:33] Wendy: I, and I'm glad you said that about a conversational style podcast, because, you know, I was thinking about in terms of different podcasts I've listened to. And then this one that we do is conversational style. And I was also listening to you talking about scripts and how they have to be translated and written.
[00:45:51] And that's a completely different thing. Cause the conversational one, you can't, it's not scripted out and you don't know where it's going and there's some words or sentiments that wouldn't make sense, but you could take a conversational style one and then script it out to be shorter. And then launch that as a multi-lingual pod.
[00:46:09] Lory: Yeah, definitely. There's certainly ways to go around it. I, myself, with my having had experience in both, I definitely prefer being able to edit an interview podcast down into a narrative like format. But that's as a preference as a listener on my own, but I know that audiences around the world prefer the interview format.
[00:46:27] So something to think about is if you are thinking about creating a version of your show in an interview format in another language is thinking maybe it would be better to get another host and interview guests that are specific to that language and maybe do like a pilot tests rather than doing like, you know, dubbing your entire show, which would be insane.
[00:46:46] Right. Um, you know, there are solutions, right. Um, but again, always thinking about, okay, what is the value for that audience? Is it worth it for me to do all of this? Because it is.
[00:46:56] Wendy: Yeah. Right, right, right. So it really is having a vision and understanding like the, the match example that you gave at the beginning, that made a lot of sense.
[00:47:06] Me tick. Is that how you say it made me tick? Yeah. Huh. Okay. We're coming to the end of time. This has been fascinating to get the insights on this, but you know, I get into some personal questions here, you know, to other languages, you work across languages. What's your favorite foreign word?
[00:47:26] Lory: Oh my gosh, what a question?
[00:47:29] I don't know.
[00:47:30] Wendy: Um, favorite foreign were foreign is, is loosely described because, uh, it can be any language.
[00:47:38] Lory: Oh my goodness. I mean, something, it would have to be in Spanish. We constantly have these brainstorming meetings for titles or shows with some of my colleagues in Spanish. And, um, we are always, you know, sitting there like, oh, this is such a beautiful word.
[00:47:50] I love the Spanish language. So it's just amazing. But I can't think of one right now. I'm sorry. It could be, it could be very cliche and say me hub, because that's the name of my show. Oh yeah. But it is a word. It is a word that I grew up listening and hearing it basically means my daughter. But you could call anybody that, like to say, like, you know, my girl, my sweet one, like I, you know, it's a term of endearment to say, you care about this person and you want them to be okay, regardless of whether or not you're related.
[00:48:20] And, uh, it's very Colombian, but it's also used a lot across Latin American. So it's a, it's a lovely word to hear. Like if someone says to you, it's a very loving thing to hear and it can be anybody who's calling you that, and you'll feel loved even if they're, you know, like your neighbor. So, um, Mihai has a really beautiful word.
[00:48:38] There you go. That's
[00:48:38] Wendy: my one. I love it. And I love that. It ties back to that. You pick that for your podcast title. Can you say me.
[00:48:45] Lory: Yes, you can. My brother is
[00:48:52] Wendy: good. I can use that for my sons. Yeah. So do you want to tell us a little bit about what it's about and your podcast? Because I think now we're going to have to go listen.
[00:48:59] Lory: Oh, well, Mia is a wonderful show. It's a podcast that follows a family's journey of immigration from their country of origin, to their country of, you know, arrival.
[00:49:11] Uh, the first season falls a Colombian family to New York. And it's really great because each episode, basically it gives you almost like an, an audio photo album where you're zooming in on, on one person each episode. So it's really like the journey of, of each person for each episode. And so the first time.
[00:49:30] The author of the story. Who's like, I'm going to tell you guys the story of my family. And so she tells her story as the daughter of immigrants. And then she says in the next episodes, you're going to hear the stories of all of my family members. And so the next episode is her mom, her dad, we get, eventually we meet her grandparents as well.
[00:49:49] And every single episode has these kinds of emotions about, you know, distance and connection and belonging and all these questions of identity that everyone is dealing with constantly. And, uh, and yeah, so it's eight episodes. Each episode is 10 minutes long and there are three seasons now, so there are three different medias.
[00:50:07] So the first one is called me in American. The second one is Franco Chinese. And so that's the story of a Chinese family going from China to France and ending up in. And then the third one is a family that's coming from Egypt and they go to the UK in London and some of them go to New York afterwards.
[00:50:30] And so that's another, another journey. But each episode, each season is a different journey and different characters. But what I found is despite all of the language versions that exist a lot of people who aren't of those cultures. Always relating to the stories because they're very universal. You don't have to be Chinese to understand what it's like, you know, to, to be far away from your parents and to, to feel a little bit other than you're in your new space and in an unfamiliar place.
[00:50:58] So there's a lot of universal themes that are applied in this show. And so you can binge the first three seasons. And wherever you get your podcasts. And we have certain, we have tons of other shows. Um, but that's our flagship one. If you wanted to hear something that's in other languages, it's agenda stories, which is our lockdown, uh, stories from around the world podcasts.
[00:51:19] So every episode is a different short story written during pandemic time, uh, three minutes, um, in English and in whatever language the person is coming from. If they're Greek, they're doing the version in Greek. Uh, we have stories in Ukrainian as well. It's of the moment we have two stories in Ukrainian.
[00:51:36] And, uh, and yeah, that allowed us to kind of expand the number of languages that we did. So that's another show that could be of interest for listening to the stories.
[00:51:44] Wendy: Okay. Okay. We'll put those in the show notes too, so people can click through and listen to those. So how about your favorite vacation?
[00:51:53] Lory: Oh, favorite vacation? Well, I just came back from Ken Kuhn. Wonderful. Why you were on vacation last week? I was also traveling, I was traveling for work and holiday, but I was in the region of Kintana row and it was a beautiful, beautiful region. And yeah, I would recommend going there. Not just Ken Quinn.
[00:52:12] Obviously I went to Saloom and Guttman and Mexico is a wonderful country and it was lovely to be able to speak Spanish all the time, but I hadn't done so in quite a long time. Cause I, you know, living in France, I'm not speaking Spanish necessarily. So it was lovely to be able to be back there. Oh
[00:52:28] Wendy: yeah.
[00:52:28] Mexico is a wonderful country. I've been down in that area, just south of Cancun and I lived for two years in Mexico city. So it's, you know, when you said Mexico, I just, my face lit up into a smile.
[00:52:41] Lory: Yeah. It's a wonderful. And how about
[00:52:43] Wendy: a memorable cross cultural experience you've had?
[00:52:48] Lory: Oh boy, I'm on to cross cultural experience.
[00:52:52] Uh, what kind of experiences are you looking for?
[00:52:56] Wendy: So I think that was shocking or that you wouldn't have understood or you were put in a funny situation. So, and then, you know, what transpired?
[00:53:06] Lory: I guess, I guess a lot of that stuff happened to me when I first came to France because I mean, it was just, you know, fresh off the boat, as we say, uh, had just arrived in France and I didn't really know much. I spoke the language, but I had this thing where sometimes people would, uh, I assume that I spoke French so well that they thought I understood everything because I didn't have much of an accent when I spoke it.
[00:53:30] And I didn't have an American accent when he spoke French. I speak like more of a Latin accent. So like people just kind of don't assume that I am I'm lost. They got it. So I think, uh, with a, with a client, once there was like an expression that the person had used. And I ended up saying something like they're avoiding the subject and I use like a really big word.
[00:53:52] Like it was or something like, they're avoiding the subject. But the term skeet is, is like, it's a pretty high level word. Like you wouldn't necessarily use that. In everyday speech, like that's a dictionary word, let's just say. And so when I said it, um, my colleague was like, whoa, how do you even know that word?
[00:54:10] Like, it's crazy, Lori. Like, you speak such good French. And the honest answer to that was that I just Spanish. I was a Spanish word and I really just, you know, I did this thing in my head where I was like, okay, it's similar enough that I could probably say this and it might. It might be a French word. So I actually, you know, I was, I was guessing that it was a real word and it totally was, and it was amazing.
[00:54:34] So I had taken the Spanish work, which is very similar and I, I said that word. And so when my colleague was like, impressed, I was like, no, no, no. That's because I spoke Spanish. And she was like, oh, I see. That's really, it that's one anecdote language was being trilingual, but came up when you, when you said that.
[00:54:52] Right.
[00:54:52] Wendy: And that's one that works. Cause I've heard about people say trying to do that with embarrassed and English and adding the O at the end and bear to Sabo to speak Spanish. Yeah. It doesn't work. It doesn't work means I'm pregnant, not embarrassed. So I'm glad that worked. Yeah. And what does final recommendations would you have for people that want to have multi-lingual podcasts or work across cultures and languages?
[00:55:17] Lory: No, your community know the community that you're trying to address when you're looking at that new language, always know who you're talking to. You know, if they like your content, your type of content, your genre, what exists already for them, and how are you filling a gap? What is the added value that you have for them?
[00:55:37] Always think of that community is basically my base. My biggest advice is think of
[00:55:41] Wendy: those people. Yeah. That's a excellent recommendation. How can people find you?
[00:55:47] Lory: All right. Well, uh, you can find me on LinkedIn, my name spelled L O R Y Martinez. You can find me on agenda studio.com and you can also find all of our podcasts wherever you get your podcasts and on our website or attend the ceo.com.
[00:56:01] So there you go.
[00:56:03] Wendy: Okay. And once you spell it CentOS,
[00:56:04] Lory: so people, uh, yeah, so agenda is spelled O C H E N T a studio studio, S T U D I o.com.
[00:56:13] Wendy: And they worry. This has been absolutely fascinating talking to you. I love the creativity of what you've pulled together with your journalism background and your languages and understanding your markets.
[00:56:25] So it's really, really impressive. I appreciate you taking the time
[00:56:29] Lory: today. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:56:33] Wendy: Oh, it's my pleasure and listeners. I know you learned something today because I certainly do. So if you know somebody that hosts a podcast or is interested in multi-lingual please forward this episode, along to them.
[00:56:46] I'd love to, to share this knowledge to people who can use it. And if you have comments that you want to put in or reach out to us about, you can join the Facebook group, it's global marketing and growth. You just go to Facebook and ask to join, and then you can join this community and converse about all things.
[00:57:04] Multi-lingual culture and language. So thanks so much for listening and we'll talk to you next.
[00:57:09]
