In this innovative audio experience, callers dialed #HO HO HO (#46 46 46) from any of Telstra’s public phone boxes for free, where an elf answered and promptly connected callers with ‘Santa’.

‘Santa’ was powered by generative AI, and conversed with callers, learning things like names, present requests, siblings, whether they’d been naughty or nice, and much more, all in real time.

As generative AI responded to prompts from callers, there was no limit to what Santa could respond to (although there were guardrails to ensure conversations didn’t stray from nice to naughty).

‘Santa’ learned and continued to use information from callers, as conversations went on, referring back to previously learned information to create connection and believability.

The model was optimised to understand young and neurodiverse voices.

On average users spent over two minutes talking with Santa, indicating conversations were interactive, immersive and meaningful.

Situation:

Despite being Australia’s best network, Telstra wanted to show Australians that it was committed to not only to functionally connect Australians but to facilitate richer, meaningful connections too.

Telstra maintains a network of over 15,000 free public phone booths. One of their main purposes is for emergency calls, with over 200,000 placed from them each year. Younger Australians, who have grown-up with smartphones do not know how to find and use these public phones.

Brief:

Drive brand love with Australians by putting a new spin on a Christmas ritual by providing children a new way to contact the North Pole. By educating young Aussies about Telstra's Payphone Network by replicating the magical experience featured in the "Hello Christmas" film through responsive AI technology.

Objectives:

Educate young Aussies about Telstra’s Payphone Network by activating their Christmas Campaign, to create an emotional connection between young Australians and our national carrier.

Christmas provided a unique opportunity for Telstra. Too often Australian’s get so caught up big festivities that there’s little opportunity for more intimate moments of meaningful connection.  

  So, whilst the rest of Australia’s big brands amped up the extroverted opulence of big Christmas bashes, Telstra saw the opportunity to celebrate a more intimate moment of connection between those who matter most.   

 The campaign also coincided with Summer Holidays, a time when parents are constantly looking for activities to entertain bored kids. 

Average Australian households have two or more smartphones, and young children are often given them as a distraction, and as such are very familiar with using them. This, combined with covid lockdowns meaning Aussie kids were not allowed to leave home, has created a generation of children who are smartphone savvy, but unfamiliar with how to find and use the free public telephone network, which exists largely for their safety.

No other telecommunication company in Australia provides public telephone infrastructure, but the phone booths as a channel were increasingly viewed as irrelevant, despite existing for public safety. There was a unique opportunity to create an emotional connection and boost brand love by reimaging these phones.  The phones have a strong brand association with Telstra, we simply needed a way to make them relevant for a younger generation. 

The objective was to facilitate meaningful connections with Telstra & educate young Aussies about their Payphone Network at Christmas time.  

It was exceptionally successful in this regard. It worked.  

589,680 direct, one-to-one calls placed to Telstra’s AI Santa over the campaign period (representing 1/3rd of Aussies aged 5 to 9)   

Average conversation time of over two minutes, demonstrating an immersive, interactive, realistic emotional experience.   

Total combined time spent speaking to Telstra’s AI Santa: 12,000 hours (over a year in total)   

A campaign film viewed over 1.3 million times on YouTube over the campaign period.   

A large proportion of younger Australians were educated on how to find, make calls, and communicate using the Telstra public phone network should they ever need to.   

Over 1,000 earned media placements over the campaign period.   

Millions of social media impressions as many parents shared video or photos of their kids using these phones.   

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The work uses a combination of generative AI, a large language model, and Google Dialogueflow technology to create a genuinely interactive and immersive audio experience, available exclusively through Telstra’s iconic public phones calling #46 46 46 (#HO HO HO). This ‘Santa’ could have thousands of individualized conversations at the same time.

‘Santa’ would learn callers’ names, present requests and more. It was tailored to interact with younger and neurodiverse voices. He could respond to all queries, as generative AI created bespoke conversations, but the system could identify inappropriate prompts and steer dialogue accordingly to ensure the experience remained safe.

Telstra’s AI Santa took a network of public phones over 100 years old and combined it with cutting-edge AI technology to create a pioneering audio experience, tailored for 5-9 year olds.