The Campaign

We created Project Revoice, a voice cloning program that gives people with ALS the full use of their own authentic voices, even after they can no longer physically speak. With a custom machine learning algorithm that analyses and completely recreates a person’s voice, this technology gives ALS patients the ability to communicate freely and naturally in their own voice. To create exposure for the program, we managed to recreate the voice of Pat Quinn, who co-founded the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge while fighting the disease himself. By launching with a famous ALS advocate known for – arguably – the biggest story in ALS Association history, we rallied support and engagement both within the community and beyond, inspiring patients across the world to join the program to receive their own Revoice.

Creative Execution

Due to the challenging nature of the technology required, Project Revoice was in development for over a year. It was signed off by the ALS Association in February 2018 and the PR team flew to NYC to film content with Pat Quinn and the Project Revoice team in early March. During this time the team coordinated the global media roll out, signed off assets and finalized the PR plan. In addition to the hero content video that told the full Project Revoice story, we created short form video content, VNR, specialist video content around tech and medicine, along with bitesize teasers and supporting infographics. Targeting key English-speaking territories, we launched in Australia, the UK, Canada and the US in mid- March and secured coverage around the globe.

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.

Building on the momentum of the Ice Bucket Challenge, which engaged people across the globe, we aimed to reach a mass audience across all those affected by ALS, their families and stakeholder groups. Our aim was to build mass awareness through high impact media, in a time-critical way, and put out a call to action for ALS/MND sufferers to record their voices. We realized we could maximize coverage by building on timely conversations about ALS/MND, prompted by the death of Stephen Hawking. Our urgency was also driven by the need to get people with ALS to record their voices quickly, before their voices deteriorated too much. As well as global media, we targeted local media. This in itself presented a challenge. Pat was American, whereas Australian media are always looking for the Australian angle. We therefore highlighted Australian ingenuity in generating this breakthrough idea and taking it to the world.