The Campaign

Our core user insight was fans wanting to both engage with and influence content. To achieve this, Talpa enabled a true 2-way conversation between fans and the TV hosts via the Google Assistant. We ensured every interaction with the Google Assistant became a natural extension and integral part of the show. To do this, backstage hosts Malvin and Vanya fronted the Google Assistant experience. Over 200 custom recordings were utilized ensuring an authentic engagement, with the Google Assistant making sure it surfaced at the right time and context. ‘Malvin and Vanya’ hosted other activities such as matchmaking, allowing the ‘hosts’ get to know their fans better by asking several questions before matching them with their hot seater, all powered by AI. For the first time, fans were able to vote for their favorite contestants and determine the show’s winner by talking to the Google Assistant, ensuring fans’ voices were heard.

Creative Execution

The close partnership between Google, who provided the technology and the platform, and GTV & Talpa, who brought deep audience insights, ensured that we created a captivating user experience that was seamlessly integrated into the show. To deliver on millennials’ desires to both watch and play a role in the curation of content, Talpa and GTV integrated the Google Assistant as an avenue for the viewers to engage with the show on a personalised level. To bridge the gap between on-screen content and that on the Google Assistant, GTV ensured that the storyline flowed continuously between the two, incorporating “natural promotions” throughout the show; including live present adlibs, video tutorials and promotions to encourage usage. Of course, real life Malvin and Vanya was totally in sync with their AI-versions.

Following the Indonesian launch of the Google Assistant and its integration with the show, engagement with The Next Boy/Girl Band Indonesia on the Google Assistant soared, ranking within the global top 10, according to Google’s internal data. A true demonstration of the number of audience engagements achieved during the campaign! Furthermore, through a mix of Talpa’s content and Google’s technological advancements which now allows accurate natural language understanding, we saw fans develop a true relationship with the content. On average, fans remained engaged for over four minutes on the Google Assistant, a testament to users’ desire to engage in new ways. By seamlessly and naturally integrating the Google Assistant into The Next Boy/Girl Band, Talpa and GTV successfully won over the minds and hearts of millennials keen to play a role in curating their own experiences, as well as engage with more immersive and captivating content.

Format owner Talpa and TV Broadcaster GTV, are at the forefront of delivering first in class entertainment for their fans but wanted to drive innovation and push the boundaries of content even more so, extending the user experience in a first-of-it's-kind way. By integrating the Google Assistant as the tech partner into their latest hit TV talent show, The Next Boy/Girl Band, Talpa and GTV were able to achieve this through personalised engagement between fans and TV show hosts.

We knew that millennials were not only hungry for entertainment consumption, but they also wanted to engage and ultimately influence content - and they wanted to do so at the time of their choice. For Talpa, empowering users to engage and influence the show through a 2-way conversation is the very natural extension that fans had been asking for. In effect, Talpa wanted to personalize one-on-one engagement with every fan, but at scale. To do this, they turned to the Google Assistant, which enables advanced conversational experiences between users and brands. It is built leveraging the latest advances in machine learning, artificial intelligence and natural language processing, along with Google’s technology stack, to build a first-of-its-kind implementation. This let fans interact with the backstage hosts of the show, Malvin and Vanya, in a literal 2-way conversation, engage with further content and allowed users to vote.