Cannes Lions

Project Revoice

BWM DENTSU, Sydney / THE ALS ASSOCIATION / 2018

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Case Film
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Overview

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Credits

Overview

Description

In many ways, our voices are what make us human. For most patients losing the voice is particularly difficult as it's such an integral part of one's personality. Project Revoice gives people with ALS the ability to speak freely and naturally in their own voice, even after they can't physically speak.

To launch the program, we recreated the voice of Pat Quinn, who co-founded the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge while fighting the disease himself. Since Pat hadn't backed up his voice in any way, we rebuilt his voice using audio data from Ice Bucket interviews and speeches found online.

Going forward, this program will change how people live with ALS, allowing them to keep communicating as themselves, rather than through a proxy machine voice or a limited set of pre-recorded phrases.

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.

Outcome

Since launch, Project Revoice has received significant interest from both the ALS community and the general public:

Over 850 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 670 articles written globally

$9.8 million estimated earned PR value.

Currently over 100 patients a week are signing up to receive their own Revoice. On average, 105 people a week are diagnosed with ALS in the United States.

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