Aldi's AI voice: How a supermarket digitized its voice-over

In April 2024, supermarket chain Aldi Netherlands took a surprising and daring step into the world of brand marketing. After four years of loyal service, the company replaced its well-known voice actor Diederik Ebbinge with a voice generated entirely by AI. But this wasn't a ready-to-use AI voice from a standard library — Aldi created a unique, customized voice that was composed of the voices of ten of its own employees from different departments.

This innovative move not only positioned Aldi as a forerunner in AI applications for brand identity, but also strengthened their core value of cost-conscious business. The campaign perfectly shows how AI can not only be a technological novelty, but also a practical tool that seamlessly matches brand strategy and values.

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The AI voice campaign in detail: A no-nonsense approach

In April 2024, supermarket chain Aldi Netherlands replaced their regular voice actor with an AI-generated voice in all radio and TV commercials. For four years, actor Diederik Ebbinge was the familiar voice-over, but Aldi took a radically different approach: a female AI voice, made up of the voices of ten Aldi employees from stores, the distribution center and headquarters.

Aldi presented this change as part of a campaign focused on efficiency and cost savings, fully in line with their discount formula. According to Mariëlle Rooswinkel, Marketing & Communication Director at Aldi Netherlands, the goal was to keep daily shopping as cheap as possible for customers: “This saves us both time and costs. Our customer benefits from that.”

According to the advertising agency, the choice for an AI voice is a perfect fit for the brand: “An AI voice fits the brand better than a voice-over from an expensive celebrity,” says Antoine Houtsma, director at Joe Public Amsterdam. An artificial voice underlines Aldi's no-nonsense, cost-conscious image more effectively than a well-known, expensive voice talent.

The special thing about this implementation is that Aldi even gave the voice a persona internally — called “Alliego Dingel” — to emphasize its character and give the voice an identity within the company.

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Surprising results and responses to the AI voice

From the beginning of April 2024, the AI voice was heard in all Aldi Netherlands radio and TV commercials, reaching an audience of millions every week via national broadcasts on major radio stations and TV channels. The launch coincided strategically with a prominent advertising wave: In the first week, the AI voice immediately announced a round of permanent price cuts on daily groceries and fruit & vegetables.

This coupling of new technology with concrete customer benefits (lower prices) underlined the message that Aldi's cost savings directly benefit consumers — a core promise of the brand.

Although Aldi did not share exact figures, the company indicated that using the AI voice provided significant benefits in time and money:

• No more royalties or license fees to a voice actor for each use of the recording — a cost that can be considerable for well-known voices
• Faster flexibility: new offers or promotions can be voice-over immediately without first having to schedule a studio and voice actor
• Full consistency in all expressions, with no variations in voice quality due to circumstances

Reactions to this innovation were mixed. A poll by the trade magazine Adformatie showed that a third of the Dutch found the AI voice in Aldi advertising impersonal and unpleasant, and preferred to hear a human voice.

Around 30% actually thought it was a good idea, provided it helped to reduce costs that benefit the customer. The rest were neutral, often with the pragmatic attitude “as long as it sounds as good as a person”.

In marketing and media circles, Aldi's move received a lot of attention as the first practical example of AI in voice-overs on this scale. Some experts praised the technical quality and called it a logical next step in efficiency, while others warned of a loss of quality in emotion and experience.

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How did they achieve this? The technical implementation

For this campaign, Aldi used advanced voice synthesis (voice cloning) technology. The technical realization was achieved through cooperation between three important partners:

1. Aldi's marketing team: Responsible for strategic direction and brand positioning
2. Joe Public Amsterdam: The creative agency that came up with the idea of using AI as an extension of Aldi's focus on smart cost savings
3. Sound circus: A Dutch sound studio that had developed its own AI tool for voice creation

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The technical process step by step:

1. Collect voice recordings: Ten Aldi employees from various departments (stores, distribution center, headquarters) were selected to record their votes. This diversity resulted in a rich dataset of voice variations.
2. AI training: In collaboration with sound studio Soundcircus, a unique voice was created based on these ten voices. The speech engine was trained with over 200 hours of voice recordings, specifically in the Dutch language.
3. Speech-to-Speech Technology: The technology is speech-to-speech: the AI voice is superimposed on real recorded text. Soundcircus describes it as “a custom-designed voice that we overlay the voice of the voice-over performance”, maintaining the nuance in timing and emotion.
4. Combine voice characteristics: The AI software combined characteristics (intonation, timbre, accent) of the source voices into one consistent voice-over sound. The result is a composite voice that incorporates elements of all employees, yet sounds like one coherent identity.
5. Implementation in campaign materials: The new AI voice was implemented in all radio and TV commercials, allowing new content to be produced quickly without having to hire a voice actor again.

The creative concept took its final shape when it became clear that using existing voices could involve legal complications. The breakthrough was the idea to use the voices of Aldi's own employees as a basis, which circumvented all rights issues and made the vote true “property” of the brand.

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What makes this case so impressive?

Aldi's AI voice stands out in the marketing landscape for several reasons:

1. Perfect brand alignment: Unlike many AI applications that primarily strive for innovation for the sake of innovation, this application fits seamlessly with Aldi's core values of efficiency and cost control. The technology actually reinforces the brand promise.
2. Internal involvement: By using employees as a voting base, Aldi not only created a unique asset but also internal pride and commitment — employees literally became “the voice of the company”.
3. Legal ingenuity: The approach cleverly circumvents the copyright complications that often arise with AI voting by only using internal voices that do not require external licenses.
4. Practical, non-experimental application: Instead of a one-off stunt, this is a structural change in Aldi's marketing approach that delivers real operational benefits — a sign that AI is mature enough for daily use.
5. Transparent communication: Aldi was open about using an AI voice and made the technology itself part of the story, showing how innovation can be used as part of the brand message.

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Why is this AI supercharged? The superpower factors

Aldi's AI voice implementation represents AI supercharging at various levels:

1. Ultimate scalability: The AI voice can be used endlessly for new content without extra costs or planning — whether it's one commercial or hundreds of different versions for different products and regions.
2. Full brand ownership: Unlike human voice actors, Aldi now has full control over its “vocal brand identity” — the voice has become a corporate asset rather than a hired talent.
3. Speed and agility: New offers or price changes can be converted directly into audio content, giving Aldi a competitive advantage in response time to promotions.
4. Consistency in brand identity: The AI voice provides absolute consistency across channels and time periods, without the natural variations that human voice actors inevitably have.
5. Democratizing premium quality: AI makes high-quality voice-overs accessible to everyday applications where this might previously be too expensive, in line with Aldi's mission to deliver premium quality at low prices.

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Challenges and Limitations

Despite its success, Aldi's AI voice innovation also faced challenges and limitations:

1. Consumer Acceptance: A significant proportion of consumers (around a third) said they found the AI voice impersonal and less pleasant than a human voice, pointing to an adoption threshold among the public.
2. Emotional resonance: Voiceover specialists pointed out that AI voices still have trouble conveying subtle emotions and text comprehension — elements that human voice actors instinctively impart.
3. Ethical questions about creative work: The campaign sparked discussion about the future of voice actors and creative professionals if AI takes over. Diederik Ebbinge himself called it “a worrying development for the cultural sector”.
4. Legal ambiguity: Although Aldi solved it smartly by only using internal voices, trade association Nedvoice pointed to the lack of voting rights regulations in the AI era, which makes future applications uncertain.
5. Technical restrictions: Speech-to-speech technology still requires human input (recorded basic text) to function optimally, which limits full automation.

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The impact and potential for your marketing team

The lessons learned from Aldi's AI voice have broad applicability for marketing teams in various sectors:

1. Operational efficiency: A custom AI voice can provide substantial cost benefits with regular audio updates (such as radio commercials, phone messages, in-store audio) by eliminating studio and actor costs.
2. Identity Management: Brands can take full ownership of their vocal identity, allowing perfect alignment with brand values and ensuring consistency over time.
3. Response rate: Teams can respond to market opportunities or emergencies with new audio content almost immediately, without the typical production delays of traditional voice-overs.
4. Brand recognition: A unique AI voice created specifically for your brand can stand out in a busy media landscape and contribute to stronger brand recognition.
5. International scalability: For global brands, AI offers the ability to have the same brand voice speak in different languages, supporting global (global + local) marketing strategies.

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For brands with frequent audio communications (retailers, banks, transport companies), this model offers an opportunity to increase both the efficiency and consistency of their communication, while avoiding the copyright complications of traditional voice-overs.

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Practical key takeaways of this project

What can marketers learn from Aldi's AI voice implementation for their own strategies?

1. Connect technology to brand values: Make sure AI innovations are directly in line with your core values — Aldi's cost-efficient AI voice enhanced their image as a smart price fighter.
2. Consider internal resources: Look within your organization for possible sources for your AI projects (such as Aldi's employee votes), this can reduce legal complications and increase internal engagement.
3. Balancing man and machine: The most effective AI voice implementations use a hybrid approach that uses human expression as a basis for maintaining emotional nuance.
4. More consumer responses: Test new AI applications thoroughly with your target audience to determine whether they enhance or weaken the brand experience — Aldi found a mixed response that could inform its future strategy.
5. Be transparent about AI use: Aldi's openness about the new AI voice made the story itself a PR opportunity and demonstrated technological leadership.
6. Calculate actual ROI: Look beyond direct cost savings and also calculate the value of speed, flexibility and brand ownership in your business case.
7. Anticipate ethical discussions: Be prepared for questions about the impact of AI on creative professionals and consider how your organization wants to respond to them.

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Ready to give your brand its own voice?

Aldi's AI voice implementation shows how AI can be not just a futuristic showpiece, but a practical, strategic asset that offers immediate business benefits. By connecting technological innovation to their core value of cost efficiency, Aldi created a perfect example of targeted AI implementation.

The big question this case raises for your brand: what recurring creative processes in your marketing activities could benefit from a similar AI approach? And how could you do that in a way that reinforces your brand values instead of just cutting costs?

Aldi's example shows that the most successful AI applications in marketing are not those that are most advanced or futuristic, but that most accurately match the brand's unique positioning and value proposition.

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This article is part of our “AI Supercharged Campaigns” series, highlighting the most innovative and inspiring AI marketing cases that can inspire your team.

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