Deeny Kaplan, Executive Vice President at The Kitchen, spoke to ttvnews about how the company has evolved over the past two decades to become one of the leaders in content localization, as it continues to expand its studios and teams around the world to cover the growing demand from the international market.
As many other industries, the video and entertainment industry was profoundly modified by the Covid 19 pandemic, which forced millions of people to quarantine in their homes and thus consume a lot more content and TV than ever before.
In this context, the demand for content skyrocketed and with it content localization became more important than ever before.
“There has never been a better time to be in the language and localization business than now”, said Deeny Kaplan, Executive Vice President, The Kitchen. “Surveys show that TV viewing in homes around the world was up 30%, 40% in every country and for every genre of programming. Which means there’s a lot of programming demand for all genres”.
To meet this demand, as of 2021 The Kitchen localization studios have been present in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Russia, Moldova, Turkey, Hungary, Egypt, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, and Israel, with HQ studios in Miami, USA, and the company has plans to continue expanding.
“I think this is just a great time for localization companies to succeed, get more successful and expand, as we’re doing”, she added.
Because the company is no stranger to growing its business and adapting to the changing industry. As one of the leading language customization companies in the world, The Kitchen has been working for over two decades, starting in Miami and growing internationally to meet clients’ growing demands.
“We first started in Miami, and then expanded to Latin America and started dubbing in Spanish and Portuguese. And about 5 or 6 years ago we started The Kitchen EMEA to answer clients’ demand for quantity and all languagues. So they have a one stop shop there,” the executive explained. “And then for subtitling we also have an expanded translation department so we’re able to subtitle to and from every language”.
With so many facilites and studios spread across so many territories, The Kitchen is still able to maintain a tight network, with each studio’s managing directors collaborating with each other to maximize the company’s total efforts.
“All the studios are part of our network. The managing directors get together when we’re at events such as Mipcom, or Miptv, or Kidscreen, and work together to help each other. It’s a solid network we’ve put together with all of our studios,” the EVP explained.
And it’s through this network of studios and a strong team that The Kitchen is able to take on any project and provide clients with answers to their requests, as big or small as they may be. “There’s no such thing as ‘No’”, the executive said. “We can always make things happen. The challenges are always keeping up with the changes and with the industry. We love challenges. We’ve seen many changes in the 22 years we’ve been in business. It’s all about finding the right people, the right team, and expanding as we have,” she added.
To top it off, having a production background has given The Kitchen the ability to stand out in a crowded market. “In our company what sets us apart is our production background. We grew up in an industry that’s all about servicing. You’ll never call here and get an answering machine if you’re looking for me, you’ll always get me, 24/7. And it’s the same with most of our sales people and heads of our departments”.
“Because we realize that it’s all about being there for our clients. We’re still old fashioned in that way and I really think it sets us apart from a lot of other studios. We are a medium-sized company and we believe it’s all about personal service and being there for our clients,” she concluded.
