Almost everything for almost everyone: The man who speaks Galaxus, Škoda and Trivago

Dominik Zeltner arrives at the agreed café right on time. "Ah good, we've found each other," he says with relief, adding, "I hope you're not disappointed now." He is not, he explains, the man he often voices in commercials: the man with a deep voice who wears Rolexes and drives BMWs and just sounds very masculine. It's true that he can slip into this role wonderfully - as most recently in the Man's Place commercial, "where a man can still be a man." But Zeltner's appearance really doesn't match the deep, smoky voice from the Man's Place commercial.

Dominik Zeltner's customer base is considerable. This comes in handy for the advertising spokesman, as he doesn't like to make phone calls and tends to regard self-promotion as an unpleasant chore. Today, the orders come in as if by magic. That wasn't always the case. When Zeltner decided to go into business for himself with his wife in his early 20s, the first few years were all about perseverance. "Spaghetti without sauce and water with it were on the daily menu," he recalls with a smile. "It was an adventure and a super time." The couple had met while working together at the private TV station TV3. After its bankruptcy, they switched to radio. There, the days were long and both thought - "naive as we were" - they could put all that energy monetarily into their own pockets as well. Together, they started out on their own as advertising spokespeople. His wife was the voice of Lidl for a long time ("Lidl lohnt sich"). Today, she has changed careers and advises self-employed people on their professional path.

But living with his children, who are now seven and ten years old, also shows him the finite nature of life. "Children grow quickly, which makes you realize that you're getting older yourself. So whatever I have left to do in life, I should tackle." And he adds, "When I die, I don't want to be remembered just as a commercial spokesperson, I want to leave something behind." That's why, for the past two years, he's been consciously seeking out readings that fascinate him and turning them into audiobooks. In doing so, he specifically approaches small publishers - contrary to his otherwise rather shy nature - and offers them to set their works to music. Often, these are not stories that he would read privately, but rather texts that feature various characters ("With certain ones, I couldn't sleep. But for speaking, it's a gift!").

The fact that he didn't dare to attend acting school as a teenager was something he held against himself for a while. As a radio actor, he can now nevertheless realize his dream to a certain extent. For example, he plays in the SRF radio play "Donjon" and interacts with the other voice actors in the spacious Basel studio. "One of my roles is the belt buckle - and it's a bit fiiiies," he adds in another mean and slightly creepy-sounding voice. Trying things out pleases Zeltner. Sometimes comments come from the director: "Don't squeal like that! Do something normal!" In the past, such criticism made him uncomfortable. "But today I know: yes, we'll now record 17 more takes, and in the end we'll use one of the first recordings."

Such recurring assignments are great, he says, because clients have to change their brand image first to switch his voice. A favorite campaign of Zeltner's was from Trivago. "That was top level on every level," he says. "The story, the image production, the sound production: all great. And I got to speak." Four spots featured insider stories that are said to have happened in hotels. At the end, the denouement; Zeltner speaks in a voice that seems to come straight out of the commercial: "How do we know? We know everything about hotels. Hotel - Trivago."

The 38-year-old wears brown corduroy pants, a blue wool sweater, leather bag, tousled hairdo and beard. His voice does not sound particularly deep, but simply pleasant. He seems to emphasize each letter with care. Not overdone, just easy to understand. He has a voice that is a pleasure to listen to. This morning Zeltner, who appears as a speaker under the name Mietmaul, has already recorded a radio spot for Appenzeller beer. The "cool sock" tone of voice in a bar was called for, he says. After 19 years in the business, he quickly recognizes which voice goes with which text. If the instruction doesn't come directly from the client, he looks at texts to see if they should be "read masculinely" (he says in the deep Man's Place voice), "or restrained" (he says quietly) "or loudly, as a market screamer!" (he exclaims). The latter is noticeable, for example, in short sentences and many exclamation points. Sometimes the brand also sets the tone. For several years, Zeltner has been the claim voice of Škoda Switzerland ("Simply clever"), Galaxus ("Almost everything for almost everyone") and Radio Pilatus ("Die bescht Musig").

Examples of spots Zeltner speaks - more examples can be found at the end of the article:

Dominik Zeltner, however, is still passionate about voiceover work. Zeltner records around 80 percent of his jobs in his own studio. He reads the texts from his smartphone - to save paper - and does it in such a way that it sounds as if he is not reading aloud. He can connect his microphone to clients' offices so they can listen to him live and make comments. But most of them trust him blindly. They let him do it and are usually pleased with the professional end result. Only rarely is Zeltner invited to external studios. Recently, for example, to London for the current Babbel campaign, in which an alien lands on Earth and has to learn languages. Zeltner enjoys the personal contact with advertisers in between. "I feel like a guest watching the scene from the outside. I then think, 'Ah yes, that must be the copywriter, that the art director, that the study operator and that the assistant...'" On the whole, though, being a spokesperson is lonely, he says. "That suits me," adds the native of Aargau with conviction.

His studio is in the basement of his house, where he lives for rent with his wife and two daughters. In Herschmettlen, a village of 300 people in the Zurich municipality of Gossau, "where fox and hare say good night to each other. He needs the peace and quiet as a balance. "During the day, when I'm telling people how great this and that company is, I enjoy being out in the country with my family and feeling real life." In addition, he says, his job is not only as a speaker and radio player, but also as a father. Since the birth of his two girls, he shares childcare with his wife. "I don't separate professional and private life so strictly. True, I do separate myself when I spend time with the children. But when they're in bed, I sometimes still do a job at 10 p.m. in the evening."