THE WOMAN BEHIND THE VOICE

Short List
TitleTHE WOMAN BEHIND THE VOICE
BrandI TOUCH MYSELF PROJECT
Product / ServiceI TOUCH MYSELF PROJECT
CategoryA01. Glass
EntrantWUNDERMAN THOMPSON Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Idea Creation WUNDERMAN THOMPSON Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Production COLLIDER Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Production 2 WUNDERMAN THOMPSON Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Post Production COLLIDER Sydney, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Simon Langley Wunderman Thompson Chief Creative Officer
Sinead Roarty Wunderman Thompson Creative Director
Amee Wilson Wunderman Thompson Art Director
James Southey Wunderman Thompson Copywriter
Angela Morris Wunderman Thompson National Chief Strategy Officer
Ana Lynch Wunderman Thompson Partner
Bronte Rohig Wunderman Thompson Engagement Manager
Gabe Hammond Wunderman Thompson Senior Producer
Kel Gronow Wunderman Thompson Editor
Brie Stewart Wunderman Thompson Creative Director, Content
Sam Cole Wunderman Thompson Senior Front End Developer
Joe Campbell Wunderman Thompson Senior Front End Developer
Ari Friedgut Wunderman Thompson Front End Developer
Jackie Archer Wunderman Thompson Head of Production
Chloe Marshall Wunderman Thompson Junior Production
Charley Drayton I Touch Myself Project Director
Pat Thrall Freelance Music Composer
Abby Sie Song Zu Sound Designer
Karen Jacobsen N/A The Woman Behind the Voice
Andrew van der Westhuyzen Collider Director
Hugh Carrick-Allan Collider Technical Director
Rachael Ford-Davies Collider Executive Producer
Lucy Pilkington Collider NYC Shoot Producer
Jonathon Pilkington Collider DoP
Charley Drayton I Touch Myself Project Executive Director
Marcia Mason I Touch Myself Project Director
Bernard Drayton I Touch Myself Project Director
Rahni Sadler I Touch Myself Project Ambassador
UTS ProtoSpace UTS ProtoSpace 3D scans

Background

Every day two women under 40 are diagnosed with breast cancer. Up to 80% of young women find symptoms themselves. Yet it’s still not widely discussed or practiced by enough women to make a difference. Data showed us that 85% of young women seek health advice online with an increasing reliance on voice assistants. But we discovered that Siri, one of the world’s most widely used assistants, had major gaps in her breast health knowledge. When you ask Siri ‘how do I check my breasts’ or ‘boobs’, she doesn’t know. Yet shockingly she can tell men how to check their testicles for cancer and responds to slang like ‘balls’ and ‘nuts’. Gender bias in tech is not only sexist, it’s dangerous, creating barriers to vital health information. The I Touch Myself Project decided to expose the gender bias in AI to encourage tech giants to make their devices more inclusive.

Describe the cultural / social / political climate in your region and the significance of your campaign within this context

Australia is a developed nation with a government and population strongly supportive of gender equality. In 1983, Australia signed the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women. Signing the convention is a commitment to promote gender equality in Australia through policies, laws, organisations, structures and attitudes that work towards the equality of all genders. Upon signing the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Australia introduced the Sex Discrimination Act 1984. This is federal legislation that prohibits sex discrimination. Under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, people are protected from discrimination and unfair treatment due to sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, relationship status, pregnancy or breastfeeding. As such, this campaign not only addressed a serious health issue, but a discrimination issue that went against the law and fundamental beliefs of Australian society.

Describe the creative idea

Siri can’t tell women how to check their breasts for cancer, but, through this campaign, the woman behind her voice could. We partnered with the original voice of Siri, Karen Jacobsen – whose voice is heard on over a billion devices worldwide – to provide young women with the life-saving breast health information they couldn’t access and put pressure on tech companies to update their devices.

Describe the strategy

Our strategy was to leverage this shocking example of gender bias to draw attention to both the gender bias in Siri’s missing knowledge and raise awareness of the importance of breast self-checking. We aimed to generate the earned media we needed to reignite the conversation around the inherent gender bias in tech with the hope that tech giants would update their devices to make them more inclusive. Our creative strategy was to highlight the missing information by providing young women with the breast health information Siri couldn’t.

Describe the execution

Given our audience’s media habits, we needed to put breast education onto social media, but had to overcome the platforms’ nipple censorship. We used 3D mapping technology to create a digital avatar, the first time Siri has had a body, so she could demonstrate breast self-examinations without censorship. We recorded the responses Siri couldn’t answer to create an instructional breast check video to spread the vital breast health information and send a powerful message about gender bias. The campaign launched on national television with an interview with Karen Jacobsen, and the video was sent out to influencers and shared across social media. But we didn’t stop there. We discovered that Siri wasn’t the only voice assistant with gaps in her knowledge. We created an Alexa breast check skill – to ensure that until tech giants make their devices more inclusive, women can still access life-saving breast health information.

Describe the results / impact

Against our target of driving awareness via earned media coverage: • Launched with a national television on-air interview with Karen Jacobsen ~ 940,000 viewership • Further coverage on morning television show Sunrise ~ 440,000 viewership • 50.2K online impressions Although this campaign launched the week the World Health Organisation officially declared Covid-19 a global pandemic, we really value what the campaign has achieved. It is still very much alive, helping spread the message of the importance of breast self-examinations and fighting gender bias in tech. We believe that every extra woman who knows how to check her breasts helps in the fight against breast cancer. Hopefully it will remind even you, or someone you know, to do a breast check.

Links

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