Headspace scales global meditation with ElevenProductions

Headspace, a global leader in guided meditation, mindfulness, and mental health, had a problem that went to the heart of its mission. With a stated goal of providing every person access to lifelong mental health support, operating primarily in English was an inherent contradiction. To solve it, Headspace partnered with ElevenProductions to dub ~200 audio files, totalling more than 31 hours of content, into Castilian Spanish, Italian, and Canadian French. The result, meditation content that sounds as human in Madrid as it does in Los Angeles.

Why voice quality is non-negotiable in wellness

Localization of wellness content carries stakes that most dubbing projects don't. A viewer watching a dubbed podcast interview will forgive the occasional uncanny valley moment. A listener being guided through breathwork at 2am, trying to manage anxiety, will not.

The human touch is essential to having a positive experience with meditation…Dynamics are key, that kind of friendly intro and then that kind of lowered, subconscious mind. If the voices were robotic or they sounded like AI, I don't think it would hit the same mark that we would need for our listeners to get to wherever they need to be.

Scott Sorenson, Director of Audio and Composer at Headspace

ElevenProductions at the centre of the workflow

AI dubbing today can produce very impressive results. But for content that's meant to be felt as much as it is understood, a human touch still matters, and Headspace's meditative content is a prime example. ElevenProductions' producers combine audiovisual translation expertise with in-depth knowledge of ElevenLabs technology to produce a carefully crafted output, ensuring that every detail, from pacing and pauses, to intonation and word choice, feels just right. On that basis, Headspace chose to partner with ElevenProductions to dub over 31 hours of guided meditations, breathwork sessions, and sleep content into three languages: Castilian Spanish, Italian, and Canadian French. All told, the engagement produced close to 93 hours of finished, localized content

The choice of ElevenLabs over other localization service providers came down to three things that traditional LSPs consistently failed to offer together: quality, speed, and genuine collaboration.

Other LSPs just didn't have the level of quality, the speed, the comfort in conversation that we would have around collaboration...At the end of the day, ElevenLabs had it all.

Scott Sorenson, Director of Audio and Composer at Headspace

Meanwhile, for ElevenProductions, the brief went far beyond translation fidelity:

In order to successfully localise meditation content, you have to really be aware of the experience that is intended for the listener. We're not just trying to translate from one language to another and convey the meaning and that's it. You actually really want to give the listener a full immersive experience that gets them into that meditative state.

Phoebe Drummond, ElevenProductions

What's next

Following the success of the initial three-language project, Headspace and ElevenProducts worked on a second, nine language engagement, a clear signal that localization is set to become a core pillar of how Headspace reaches a global audience.