Under the Hood: The World of Waze Voices
Brand Programs Head Erin Bellsey on creating immersive driving experiences and bringing more joy to the road with Waze voice experiences.
Under the Hood gives you an inside look at different parts of Waze — straight from the people working on them every day.
Our mission on the programs team is to combine the best of our product, partners, and content channels to create fun and memorable experiences for our users. I feel especially grateful to work for a brand with a positive mission to end traffic and for a team whose primary focus is bringing joy to people in otherwise-stressful or mundane moments — especially at a time like this.
One of our most recognizable programs is the one we’ve built around Waze voices. Few things get Wazers more excited than when we bring new voice navigation to the app. It’s hard not to smile when your favorite character or celebrity’s voice is giving you directions on your drive. Whenever we add a new voice, the positive response online is overwhelming (in a good way!). I’m lucky to be part of the team that gets to decide which voices to bring to our users, along with other in-app experiences that make driving more fun.
The vision behind voices
Our goal for the program is to upgrade the driving experience. It’s not only about making it more fun — we want to make it less stressful, too.
Custom voices are the heart of the experience, but we’re working hard to add new elements that transport users more deeply into the world of whichever personality or character’s voice we’re featuring. Sometimes, we add custom Moods or vehicle icons and even specially curated playlists to add depth and color to the driving experience. When you add all of these things together, you have what we call a “Waze theme.”
Our recent DC Batman vs. The Riddler experience is a great example of where we’re heading with Waze themes. Waze users get to choose between Batman or The Riddler to voice their navigation, then pick a custom Mood and car icon to match the character. We also partnered with Spotify and created custom playlists tailored specifically to the theme, one for Batman and one for the Riddler. The brands we partner with, like Warner Bros. and DC in this case, love having the opportunity to share something so customized and special with fans. Plus, they get to reach people with limited interruptions, since they’re driving. That’s super valuable to partners.
Choosing the right voices
The first thing we ask ourselves is: what would make our users happy? What are they excited about? We know through research, for example, that our audience loves fantasy and animated characters. So if we find an opportunity in that category, we get super excited to start exploring what’s possible and how that world can come to life on Waze. Then we think about creative potential. Our incredibly talented creative team delves deep into the world of the partner, personality, or brand to come up with a narrative that brings that world to life authentically on the Waze app. Voices that are associated with rich creative territory — whether in the form of an iconic dynamic (like Superhero vs. Super Villain for Batman and The Riddler), or characters, vehicles, or big personalities — make for the most engaging themes. Unsurprisingly, these are the ones our users get most excited about, too.
Whenever we consider partnering with another brand, it’s also really important to us that their values line up well with ours. Waze is community-driven, bold, welcoming, genuine, optimistic — and we partner with brands that align with these qualities. We also love working with brands that are comfortable experimenting and co-creating a totally new experience with our marketing and creative teams. That’s really where the magic happens.
One of the most important requirements is a recognizable voice. We like to refer to this as the “eyes-closed test.” Fans should be able to instantly identify the voice and get a true sense of the character’s world and personality. We ask ourselves, “If someone drives with this voice, will it feel like the character (or music artist, personality, etc.) is right there with them in the passenger seat?” That’s why Batman vs. The Riddler works so well. Even with your eyes closed (don’t do this if you’re driving, please!) you are immediately transported to Batman’s world, and he’s directing you to hit the road in your Batmobile.
Diving in
It takes several months to bring a new Waze theme to life, from the moment we start talking about an idea, all the way through final development. Once we find the right voice, our creative team comes up with a narrative that threads the needle across all the user touchpoints, from what Wazers will see in the app to the related content we share on our social channels, and everything in between.
Once they have a feel for the character’s personality and some key phrases they’d be likely to say, our in-house writers build a custom, turn-by-turn script. They’ll take something as simple as “start drive,” for example, and add a little flair to eventually bring Wazers right into the world we’ve created. For Batman vs. The Riddler, we added the line, “The Riddler thinks this city is his, let’s show him who’s city this really is. Ready?” And for our Sesame Street Cookie Monster voice, we went with, “Seat belt on? Check. Cookie eaten? Om nom nom om nom. Check! Off we go!” This part is a balancing act — we want to get creative and have fun with each script, but never at the expense of driver safety. So our top priority is to make sure each navigation prompt is clear and direct. If you ask our writing team, having a parameter like this is actually part of the fun; it’s a unique creative challenge. We work closely with our partners to make sure they’re comfortable and happy with the creative direction, and then it’s time to head to the studio to “roll the tape.”
Bringing the theme to life
Production is definitely one of my favorite parts. Hearing the voice actors take the material we created and run with it is really fun. For Batman vs. The Riddler, we had the extra challenge of finding a safe, socially distant way to capture the audio. Jake, Danny, and Jeff from our creative team, and our producer, Trevor, directed a remote voice recording session with Warner Bros., Wally Wingert (who voices The Riddler in some of the Batman games), and Kevin Conroy, who’s been the voice of Batman in some of the animated series and games for over two decades.
There’s a limited number of lines each actor has to work with (since we want to be simple and clear when it comes to navigation). But Wally and Kevin know their characters so well that this didn’t stop them from riffing and bringing a huge amount of personality to the script. Being able to watch their process in action was inspiring!
Then the team had to figure out how to use Waze Moods and Car icons to reflect the voices’ characters in the app. The Riddler doesn’t have a famous ride like Batman does, so our designers had to think, “what cues can we take from The Riddler’s world to come up with his Car icon?” There’s something satisfying about solving these puzzles along the way and then, eventually, sharing the end result with Wazers.
What’s next for Waze voice experiences?
We’re working on expanding the program so Wazers can choose from more themes, depending on their mood or destination — similar to how they’d choose a song, playlist, or snack for their ride. In this role, I’ve learned so much about the audio space and its quirks and challenges. There’s been a surge in audio-first hardware and streaming apps as people make audio content a bigger part of their day-to-day. And driving is arguably the moment when people are most engaged with it, with the least amount of interruption. That’s what makes it ideal for improving someone’s experience on the road with a more entertaining and personalized drive.
That millions of Wazers around the world chose to ride with our Batman vs. The Riddler theme is an encouraging sign. We can’t wait to keep the momentum going and bring more themes to our Wazers in 2021.
