PROJECT REVOICE

Short List
TitlePROJECT REVOICE
BrandTHE ALS ASSOCIATION
Product / ServicePROJECT REVOICE
CategoryB06. Use of Technology
EntrantBWM DENTSU Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Idea Creation BWM DENTSU Sydney, AUSTRALIA
PR HAYSTAC Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Production LYREBIRD Montreal, CANADA
Production 2 FINCH Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Production 3 NAKATOMI Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Production 4 RUMBLE STUDIOS Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Additional Company SPACE 66 Sydney, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Rob Belgiovane BWM Dentsu Chief Creative Officer
Asheen Naidu BWM Dentsu Executive Creative Director
René Schultz BWM Dentsu Senior Art Director
Oskar Westerdal BWM Dentsu Senior Copywriter
Emma Durlacher BWM Dentsu Onscreen Producer
Eeuwout 'Dutchy' Baart BWM Dentsu Design Director
Jenna Mills BWM Dentsu Creative Services Director
Brett Ludeman FINCH Director
Brendon Killen BWM Dentsu Editor
Jason Carnew Haystac National General Manager
Sarah Littlefair Haystac General Manager Haystac Sydney
Alexandre de Brébisson Lyrebird Co-Founder and CEO
Jose Sotelo Lyrebird Co-Founder
Kundan Kumar Lyrebird Co-Founder
David Dodero Lyrebird Head of Operations
Corey Esse FINCH Executive Producer
Claire Thompson FINCH Producer
Emad Tahtouh Nakatomi Managing Director
Cara Szabo Nakatomi Producer
Hamish Pain Nakatomi Engineer
Patrick Barnes Nakatomi Senior Engineer
Ben Bray Nakatomi Interactive Team Lead
Tone Aston Rumble Studios Sound Designer
Cam Milne Rumble Studios Sound Designer
Sha Toth Rumble Studios Post Producer
Michael Gie Rumble Studios Music Producer
Darren Lim Rumble Studios Composer
Christopher Gregson Space 66 General Manager
Elliot Owen Space 66 Creative Director

The Campaign

With a custom machine learning algorithm that analyses and completely recreates a person’s voice, Project Revoice gives ALS patients the full use of their own authentic voices, allowing them to speak freely and naturally even after they physically can’t. To launch the program, we managed to recreate the voice of Pat Quinn, who co-founded the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge while fighting the disease himself.

Creative Execution

To make this technology available to the wider ALS community, Project Revoice has built an online voice bank where ALS sufferers can easily record the voice material necessary for their own voice clones. By the end of 2018 these recordings will be used to create more ‘Revoices’, which users can access and ‘speak’ with via their own Assisted/Augmentative Communication (AAC) devices. Since launch Project Revoice has inspired new hope for thousands of ALS sufferers. While the technology is currently limited to English-speaking patients only, the ultimate goal of the program is to prevent anyone diagnosed with ALS from losing their voice.

Results

Since launch, Project Revoice has received significant interest from both the ALS community and the general public: Over 900 million earned media reach Over one million organic video views in the first week. By week two over 41 million people had posted, commented shared or mentioned the campaign. Over 680 articles written globally $9.8 million estimated earned PR value. Over 500 patients joined the program in the first month alone.

Ever since the Ice Bucket Challenge raised over $115 million dollars for the ALS Association, the ALS community has been eager to see breakthroughs that can improve their quality of life. With Project Revoice, we rallied global support and community engagement around a new program that for the first time will give patients the ability to speak freely in their own voices, forever changing the way people live with ALS.

To rebuild Pat’s voice we had to create a databank of audio for the algorithm to work with. Since Pat hadn’t banked any audio, our challenge was to build a sufficient databank ourselves from old Ice Bucket interviews and speeches found online. In March 2018, surrounded by his family and friends Pat was finally able to speak again in his own voice, after over a year in silence. This emotional moment became the heart of our campaign, and once more Pat’s voice became a rallying cry for the ALS community with a call to action to join the program.

Links

Video URL