Being Kevin’s carrot mum – voicing the Aldi Christmas campaign

It’s not every day you’re asked if you can sound like a panicky root vegetable.

Well, I say that, but as a voiceover I’m often asked to create a voice for all manner of weird and wonderful things – festering gum disease, an empty fridge, a reindeer with sinus issues – but in this instance I was being asked if I could be a carrot.

But not just any carrot.

A panicky carrot.

Reader, I leapt at the chance.

The recording sessions were shrouded in secrecy. I didn’t get to see the visuals for the ad, or even see the full script. All I knew was that it was the Christmas campaign for Aldi, a major supermarket. And that I had to be a talking carrot.

(Actually, as the sessions evolved, I also got to be a talking bauble that turned out to be a sassy mouse but that’s another story).

I really enjoyed working on this campaign, not least because the direction I was given by the guys from the ad agency were incredibly detailed and exacting.

By turns, I had to sound all shades of panicked (frightened, unnerved, terrified, nervous, skittish) angry (vexed, irritated, furious, miffed) and relieved (grateful, exhausted and grateful, 10% more grateful than exhausted and 27% more exhausted than grateful) and all the above, all at the same time.

As any pro voiceover will tell you, the job we do is subtle.

We have to be able to dial different facets of emotion up and down, sometimes very gradually in tiny degrees, just as a sound engineer rides the faders while mixing a song. Or a perfumer perfecting a new scent (a bit more bergamot, a tad less vanilla, a generous dash of rose).

We have to create a spectrum of emotion, increasing and decreasing in intensity and complexity to match our client’s direction, as if the sounds we’re creating are delicate variations of shades on a colour wheel.

Me and the family.

My character (or should that be carrot-ter??) is the mum carrot in a family of festive carrots who are re-enacting the film classic Home Alone, but about carrots.

Kevin the carrot is (you guessed it) home alone for Christmas. He gets to enjoy a smorgasbord of treats while his carrot mother is panicking in an airport.

Anyway. Here’s the finished product. I really hope you enjoy it and as a result, choose to do all your Christmas shopping at Aldi. 🙂

Want to hear more characters? Click here.

Want to hear something more serious? Click here!