SECOND LIFE

Short List
TitleSECOND LIFE
BrandIBM
Product / ServiceIBM WATSON
CategoryI07. Corporate Purpose & Social Responsibility
EntrantGEOMETRY OGILVY JAPAN Tokyo, JAPAN
Idea Creation GEOMETRY OGILVY JAPAN Tokyo, JAPAN
Media Placement AUR Tokyo, JAPAN
PR AUR Tokyo, JAPAN
Production BIRDMAN Tokyo, JAPAN

Credits

Name Company Position
Doug Schiff Geometry Ogilvy Japan Chief Creative Officer
George Sugitomo Geometry Ogilvy Japan Executive Creative Director
Ricardo Adolfo Geometry Ogilvy Japan Executive Creative Director
Andy Fenning Geometry Ogilvy Japan Creative Director
Shintaro Hashimoto Geometry Ogilvy Japan Associate Creative Director
Toshikazu Suzuki Geometry Ogilvy Japan Senior Copywriter
Takashi Tsukamoto Geometry Ogilvy Japan Senior Art Director
Ririko Tatsumi Geometry Ogilvy Japan Art Director
Kasia Grabek Geometry Ogilvy Japan Art Director
Naoya Kataoka Geometry Ogilvy Japan Copywriter
Yutaro Nagata Geometry Ogilvy Japan Copywriter
Fumikazu Okajima Geometry Ogilvy Japan Designer
Morris Ku Geometry Ogilvy Japan Creative Video Director
Natsuki Tosa Geometry Ogilvy Japan Production Director
Junko Igarashi Geometry Ogilvy Japan Business Director
Wakaba Mikata Geometry Ogilvy Japan Account Manager
Mitsue Lin Geometry Ogilvy Japan Account Executive
Aki Sugawara Geometry Ogilvy Japan Creative Service Director
Naoko Ito Geometry Ogilvy Japan Strategy Director
Roy Ryo Tsukiji Birdman Creative Director
Masaharu Miyasaka Birdman Director
Yuta Toga Birdman Assistant Director
Yoshihiko Abe Birdman Art Director
Shoya Ozawa Birdman Designer
Takeru Kobayashi Birdman Technical Director
Shudai Matsumoto Birdman Technical Director
Takahisa Maeda Birdman Back-End Engineer
Takumi Saito Birdman Front-End Engineer
Naoki Asou hsbs Front-End Engineer
Yoshihiro Miura Birdman Motion Designer Camera Technician
Yoko Kosins Birdman Project Manager
Naoaki Kitahara Birdman Project Manager
Tamami Maekawa Birdman Project Manager

Background

Japan now has the world oldest population with more than 1 in 4 citizens over 65. And with life expectancy at 85, retirees are looking at 20+ years of feeling lonely and unproductive. IBM wanted to put their technological prowess to work, in order to begin to find answers to how seniors could live more productive, happier lives in their later years. The objective was to meaningfully demonstrate IBM's AI abilities; in a tangible way that would bring the foreign company closer to the Japanese people.

Describe the strategy

We worked with senior organizations, community offices, retirement centers and recruited online as well to find seniors interested in finding a more stimulating future. Fortunately, we found hundreds of seniors who had no fame or fortune. These typical aged Japanese participants more often than not discovered they had interests outside of their occupation through IBM technology, which led to more fruitful occupational suggestions. The youngest group we had as participants were verging on retirement, in their mid-60s, but the oldest were in their mid-90s.

Describe the execution

After thousands of seniors were recruited, they answered simple questions via their voice, as Watson's AI analyzed and drew connections between a databank of occupations and characteristics, and those participants' personalities. The IBM algorithm cross-referenced occupational data with participants' traits via Watson's deep personality cognitive analytics. The platform has so far helped over 43,000 seniors find a fulfilling path they otherwise wouldn't have identified.

List the results

The campaign gained over US$3mm in media attention, 46 million impressions—quite a large number for a b2b effort—while helping over 43,000 seniors find passions they never may have been able to identify. In addition, the campaign received a 2020 D&AD Wood Pencil and has been accepted into the 2021 Communication Arts Interactive Annual.

Please tell us how the brand purpose inspired the work

The “Second Life” project took well over a year to produce. First came the desire on the part of the IBM Japan CMO, Lisa Gilbert, to create an IBM brand project using Watson which could produce a meaningful effort in helping with the aging challenges in Japan. Looking at all that IBM offers, the agency worked closely with IBM Japan and looked into ways that Watson’s AI data analytics could be used. After coming up with the general idea of creating an algorithm that could look into the personalities of individuals and cross reference that data with professional position-based data we could gather, we decided that this direction would have a lot of merit and moved forward by both using the IBM personality index API and adding our own data-retrieving personalized software.

Links

Website URL