InVideo, Lumen5, Or HeyGen — Which One Is The Best For Culturally Specific AI Videos?
Are AI video tools smart enough to meet the demands of picky global marketers who want to engage with local audiences?
At the beginning, there was a text.
It ruled the world for thousands of years.
When the text wasn’t enough anymore, text-to-image became the next big thing.
Now it’s text-to-video.
It seems to rule the world of generative AI enthusiasts.
But are the AI video tools smart enough to meet the demands of picky global marketers who want to engage with local audiences?
Can text-to-video tools help create culturally specific content?
To find the answer to this question, I took a closer look at three top AI video tools.
HeyGen
The tool effectively tempts with the tagline “No camera? No crew? No problem!”. Well, I had no choice but to give the tool a spin.
When you create AI videos in HeyGen, you can use or create a new avatar, generate a script, or provide your own script. The tool claims it can deliver output in 50 languages. I decided not to overwhelm the tool (yet), and decided for an English output only.
My goal was to create a short ad for a chocolate bar with a cultural touch.
This was the prompt:
Create a culturally specific marketing video for a chocolate bar tailored to British consumers. Highlight the product’s connection to British heritage, traditions, and modernity. Emphasize its versatility for various occasions. Conclude with a call to action directing viewers to the brand’s website and social media platforms.
And this was the result:
I could choose from a huge collection of diverse avatars in all possible shapes, colors, and sizes. I decided to go for “Monica in Pink Shirt”. Initially, the tool generated the video with five scenes, but as it exceeded my target one-minute content, I cut the fluff to bring up the essence.
The script generated by the tool was somewhat adapted to the British culture. However, the video sounds and looks too “avatarish” to tempt the audience to the website and indulge in the taste of my chocolate bar.
Luckily, HeyGen allows you to upload your assets, such as short videos, or add customized text, so you can adapt your AI creation. Still, to achieve a total, culturally- specific, human touch, I wouldn’t use the AI voice-over offered by HeyGen for a marketing video. Nor an avatar. But that’s just me, maybe you, or your consumers have different preferences.
To make the videos sound more natural, the tool offers to create your Custom Avatar with your own voice by uploading recordings. And to make the process even faster, you can choose the voice cloning feature in +25 languages. The feature costs 99 USD per year, so I opted out of testing it.
Lumen5
The tool offers two key features: Turn blogs to videos or Talking heads videos. It can auto-generate captions for all videos, plus you can customize your creations with callouts or captions. On top of that, it includes many templates with texts, clips, and visuals.
You can choose between text on media (convert blog post or script to video), AI voiceover, video with your own voiceover, or talking head (your own, not an AI avatar). My pick was AI voiceover.
Next, you need to provide the URL of a blog post, or article that you want to convert to a video or provide a script.
I submitted a script for my short chocolate bar ad adapted to the Polish market. Although I provided a detailed description of what every scene should contain, the tool took only the transcript into account and matched it with random scenes, totally unaligned with my script. And rightly so, because the tool promises only to convert transcripts into videos, not the scripts (or prompts) into video.
I gave it a try anyway. The first scene in my script was “Begin with a breathtaking aerial shot of the picturesque Tatra Mountains in Poland during a snowy winter. Accompany the scene with a soft and melodic Polish folk tune.” The tool ignored my ideas and instead generated a first scene with a man walking on the street with coffee and a sandwich in his hands.
For some reason, the tool also inserted a sausage into the video that fits neither the script nor the voiceover.
Of course, I could edit the video and add different assets by choosing from millions of videos, clips, or images. Some clips were even specific to my target culture and presented Polish landmarks, the Polish flag, or traditions. However, my goal was to try what the tools could generate out of the box, without me tweaking anything in the post-production.
This time, the voiceover quality was very good, unlike the artificial voice from HeyGen. Although the clips used in the video have quite good quality, they fit neither my script nor my target culture.
InVideo
In my quest for the perfect result, I finally turned to InVideo. It’s a text-to-video tool praised by many as the top AI video solution.
This time I inserted my script with voiceover in German and adapted the ad to the German audience. InVideo was finally the right tool to do the job correctly. It promises to convert prompts to videos, so it could understand my intentions.
Instead of a detailed script, I entered a generic prompt:
Create a culturally specific marketing video for a chocolate bar tailored to German consumers. Highlight the product’s connection to German heritage, traditions, and modernity. Use the German language and imagery to evoke a sense of national identity while showcasing the chocolate’s premium quality. Emphasize its versatility for various occasions. Conclude with a call to action directing viewers to the brand’s website and social media platforms. The voiceover should be in German.
The video was ready in less than 3 minutes.
The result? Not very satisfying. The video quality was excellent, the delicious chocolate filled my screen to the brim, however, the voiceover was generated in English. Although I indicated that the voiceover should be in German, the tool defaulted back to English, notifying me that the support for German was coming soon.
Final thoughts
Are AI video tools suitable for creating culturally-specific marketing content?
After running a couple of tests, I have mixed feelings. I do see the potential of these tools, but I wouldn’t fully rely on AI to generate my localized videos, especially for marketing purposes.
The tools speed up the whole video creation process, but the human touch is still key to ensuring that the voiceovers, clips, images, and captions will truly resonate with your target audience. Especially, when the tool carelessly inserts stereotypical references as was in the case of the German ad.
The videos generated in InVideo, HeyGen, and Lumen5 could be a decent starting point. After some manual editing, tweaking, and reviewing these videos might eventually become suitable for publishing.
What’s your experience with generating videos with AI for specific cultures?
Ready to infuse your content with a cultural touch? As a localization consultant, I can guide you on this journey.
You can find me on LinkedIn as well.
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