The Campaign

In order to make her dream come true, we used the power of technology to create Tetsuko Kuroyanagi’s android called “totto”. For her voice, we extracted sound data from her tv show, which holds a Guinness world record for being the longest broadcasted program, sampling conversations with over ten thousand guests. We applied deep learning technology which learned and reproduced her tone, intonation and speaking patterns, managing to re-create her voice without using voice recordings or any previously used type of sound editing.

Creative Execution

Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, one of the leading-people working on Android research, developed totto together with A-Lab, NTT, TV Asahi, Dentsu, academic researchers, and creatives, spending 6months working on the project.

Through her newly created YouTube channel, conversations with other androids, lectures at overseas advertisement awards, conversations at events where young people gather, and other experimental activities, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi was able to create new fans who hadn’t been in contact with her yet, and increase her range of activities at once.

Using technology, we were able to expand the presence of one celebrity and increase the range and volume of their activities beyond any physical constraints. We created a new point of contact with fans of the celebrity, acquired a new fanbase, and raised the value of the celebrity through technology.

It wasn’t just voice and sound editing, thanks to the very close resemblance of the android, people felt a sense of closeness and deep interest, helping to realize her dream of increasing the opportunities to talk to even more people.