The Campaign

We didn't come across any regulations during this campaign.

Results

Background: Honda Smile Mission is a daily radio show where a reporter introduces Japan while driving a car named Petiteco. Currently, the listeners are drivers. Our mission was to find a way to increase interaction with more people, and attract interest to capture new listeners. Solution: We turned the show’s car that carried interview equipment, into a car radio-personality! A car that can communicate by itself!　To do so, we structured an original radio personality dialog system: installed 3 years of footage, then for six month taught the car modern Japanese language analyzing all open conversations on the web and SNS. The car’s communication skills evolved with a machine learning technique through the journey. On the website, everyone could check out Petiteco’s current location. Sharing info about local places, the car finds its next destination from recommendations. On twitter, everyone could talk with Petiteco and it would answer back. These conversations created the next show. Petiteco also does a free style rap featuring places, things, people it met. Making it possible for the listeners to communicate with the radio personality directly anytime anywhere creating an interactive radio show. Also, the listeners’ voices were integrated in to the show making them want to participate even more through talking to Petiteco. This idea turned a regular radio show to a new form of entertainment.

The unique and weird appearance of the car drew much attention on the streets and events. This made it easier for the audience to become interested in the car wanting to take pictures and try talking to it. Then they knew about the radio show and wanted to hear about their conversation with the car on it. The audience who came to the web page could here too participate in the making of the show by talking to the car and teaching it local specialties etc. Twitter kept reminding people about the project through the car’s journey tweets each day.

In less than a month, Petiteco was featured on TV, newspapers, internet, huge spread out on SNS ... The car even got invited to be a guest at rock festivals! Now many people surrounded Petiteco wherever it went, talking to it and taking pictures together. Visitors to the show’s website increased 10 times, that’s more than 2 million people. We gained many new listeners!