Why is this work relevant for Direct?

Our goal of this project is to start a fresh new dialogue between North and South and make it attractive enough for the tech-savvy Gen-Z of South Korea. The concept of virtual North Korean friends that can be easily activated on the smartphone and play whenever you want can directly create a special connection with our target audience. While tech-savvy Gen-Z plays with this interactive A.I, they can have a special moment of having a conversation with virtual North Korean, which is impossible in real life.

Background

South and North Korea have been divided for the past 70 years since the end of the Korean War. During the time of division, there has been no cultural exchange between the two countries, and the North Korean often has been described as a military threat on the media. The stories about desperate defectors or nuclear threats have been told in the news and the movies, but it is rare to hear about the cultural side of regular citizens of North Korea. Since the peaceful mood was set after the Inter-Korean Summits in 2018, the Ministry of Unification wanted to start a campaign that can reinforce this peaceful momentum. The main goal was to create a fun and unique experience for south Koreans to get curious about the cultural side of North Korea.

Describe the creative idea (30% of vote)

If it’s impossible to meet a real North Korean in person, how about we create one? We created the world’s first “A.I. North Korean”, a virtual character sharing stories of North Korea on your mobile phone. This virtual character responds in real-time to any questions about North Korea. It has machined-learned a massive volume of data- specifically on culture, education, history, art, and new technology of North Korea, which often has not been covered in the media before. This A.I. is generated with a voice-activated mobile app and interactive OOH display, so the audiences can have a conversation and they can ask anything to know better about North Korea. Furthermore, as we built the A.I. persona, we recorded a real North Korean defector and used voice-cloning technology to formulate an average character of North Korean with a friendly tone of voice.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

The objective was to create a fresh new conversation experience empowered by new technology that is relevant to our target audience, Gen-Z who are tech-savvy and fluent with the mobile platform. For this reason, we needed a solution that would be very accessible to the mobile device and satisfy the real-time interaction. So, we built a voice-activated A.I. persona that has machine-learned massive volumes of data about North Korea. We created three different virtual characters that represent the young generation of North Korea that tell us the stories about today’s North Korea: Pyongrin Kim, a 5th grader who can share the stories of children’s school/education in North Korea, Sowon Lee, a Pyongyang city tour guide who can talk about popular tourism spots and transportations in Pyongyang, and Hangil Lim, a student at the Kim-Chaek University of Technology, who talk about the college life and new technologies in North Korea.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

We chose an interactive booth and a mobile app as a major touchpoint to experience A.I. North Korean to South Korean audience. On November 26, 2019, an interactive booth that can generate a real-time conversation was installed in the center of Seoul City Hall where the <Gyeoremal-keunsajeon> exhibition was held, which commemorates the 20th anniversary of the Inter-Korean language research project. So that, we made sure this project was first-hand exposed to the people who have a high interest in the culture and language of North and South. Also, we delivered the special mobile kit to the major Youtube influencers. By placing the NFC-enabled character figures on their smartphones, the app will be downloaded and activated to start a conversation. The Youtube influencers broadcasted their live reactions in real-time and share this curious experience to their online audiences. With the power of social media, the news had quickly spread.

List the results (30% of vote)

The most important number is the conversation time which had reached up to 10,802 minutes in the first month of its launch. The total number of questions generated by South Korean audiences reached up to more than 11,610. After the campaign, more than 82% of the participants responded that they developed a positive outlook on North Korea while 89% responded that they are more likely to say “yes” to try a conversation with the real North Korean one day.