Background

Samsung is a market leader in India but with low-end phones, ( Phones without Samsung’s A.I. Voice Assistant; Bixby). Our challenge was to create mass awareness of Samsung’s Bixby A.I. voice assistant to Indian mobile users through a meaningful and innovative campaign.

Describe the creative idea

Bixby Voice Forever is the world’s first personalized Voice Assistant. The first device was created for Sonal; a mother of two and Motor Neurone Disease patient. All MND patients lose their ability to speak. Before Sonal lost her speech, we engineered her own personalized Voice Assistant so she can leave her natural voice alive in her children’s smartphones and throughout all of their Samsung home appliances. We recorded her voice and synthesized all tones, pitches and unique characteristics to create a realistic voice file we could integrate into Bixby’s A.I. code; to make her voice, the voice of Bixby. We changed the wake-up command from “Hi Bixby” to “Hi Mama,” and personalized the responses, so it always answers with her children’s names and personal information. By creating the first personalized voice assistant, we can imagine a future where we all have a more meaningful relationship with Artificial Intelligence.

Describe the strategy

Bixby Voice Forever is the world’s first personalized Voice Assistant. The first device was created for Sonal; a mother of two and Motor Neurone Disease patient. All MND patients lose their ability to speak. Before Sonal lost her speech, we engineered her own personalized Voice Assistant so she can leave her natural voice alive in her children’s smartphones and throughout all of their Samsung home appliances. We recorded her voice and synthesized all tones, pitches and unique characteristics to create a realistic voice file we could integrate into Bixby’s A.I. code; to make her voice, the voice of Bixby. We changed the wake-up command from “Hi Bixby” to “Hi Mama,” and personalized the responses, so it always answers with her children’s names and personal information. By creating the first personalized voice assistant, we can imagine a future where we all have a more meaningful relationship with Artificial Intelligence.

Describe the execution

1st: Collaborated with the MND NGO Asha Hope foundation; they taught us how we could support them in the fight against the disease and helped us find the right patient. 2nd: Found Sonal, an MND patient willing to be the first to try this technology. 3rd: Recorded her complete vocal range and created an exact digital replica of it. 4th: Synthesized the unique details of her speech using a custom Deep Neural Network algorithm. 5th: Integrated the voice file into Bixby’s A.I. code, to make her real voice, the voice of Bixby. 6th: Personalized the wake-up command from “Hi Bixby” to “Hi Mama”. 7th: Personalized the responses, so it always answers with her children’s names and relevant personal information. 8th: Created the final personalized Bixby devices and gifted them to the family. 9th: Created a commercial to show the potential this technology has to help MND patients.

List the results

The campaign raised awareness of MND and Bixby across all of India and became a top Twitter trending topic for weeks. The Youtube spot reached +100 million views in less than 7 days and more than +201 million views to date; making it one of the most viral commercials in history. Additionally, audiences created numerous reaction videos with thousands of views. But most importantly, we achieved in making this never before seen technology a reality and gave MND patients around the world a new way to cope with this deteriorating disease.