KONE - MACHINE CONVERSATIONS

TitleKONE - MACHINE CONVERSATIONS
BrandKONE OYJ
Product/ServiceKONE ELEVATORS
Category D03. Use of Real-Time Data
Entrant HASAN & PARTNERS Helsinki, FINLAND
Idea Creation HASAN & PARTNERS Helsinki, FINLAND
Idea Creation 2 KONE Espoo, FINLAND
Media Placement SPOON Helsinki, FINLAND
PR THE WHITEOAKS CONSULTANCY Farnham, UNITED KINGDOM
PR 2 THE HONEY PARTNERSHIP London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production HASAN & PARTNERS Helsinki, FINLAND
Production 2 COCOA MEDIAPRODUCTIONS Helsinki, FINLAND
Production 3 TRE FILM Helsinki, FINLAND
Production 4 INTO DIGITAL Helsinki, FINLAND
Credits
Name Company Position
Tobias Wacker hasan & partners Oy Creative Director
Timo Huopalainen hasan & partners Oy Senior Creative, Art Director
Rasmus Stoltzenberg hasan & partners Oy Copywriter
Vesa Markonsaari hasan & partners Oy Production AD
Mia Sirkiä hasan & partners Oy Head of BtoB
Ketsia Anttila hasan & partners Oy Account Manager
Anna Nurkse hasan & partners Oy Digital Officer
Dean Clatworthy hasan & partners Oy Lead Developer
Turo van Liere hasan & partners Oy UI/UX Designer
Luca Rossi hasan & partners Oy Web Designer
Anja Boxberg KONE Oyj Director, Maintenance Marketing Global Communications & Marketing
Max Alfthan KONE Oyj Executive Vice President, Marketing and Communication
Anna-Kaisa Ehnqvist KONE Oyj Marketing Communications Manager Global Marketing & Communications
Henri Laurikka Cocoa Mediaproductions CG Supervisor and Artist
Niko Kuurne Cocoa Mediaproductions Producer
Aleksi Koskinen Tre Film Ab Photographer
Mark Terry-Lush The Honey Partnership LLP Partner, managing director
Antti Rasi Into Digital Oy Managing Director
Antti Lassila Into Digital Oy Head Developer
Jarno Kontkanen Into Digital Oy Frontend Developer
Janne Ahvenlampi Cocoa Mediaproductions Motion Graphics
Markku Mäkelä Cocoa Mediaproductions Sound Design
Jonas Bohman Cocoa Mediaproductions Digital Artist
John Broy Whiteoaks Associate Director
Lena Barner-Rasmussen Spoon Agency Director

The Campaign

Talking about AI, IoT and Machine Learning would get us nowhere. So we asked a simple question: has anyone ever HEARD machines talking to each other — in real-time? We knew the new KONE service would be able to listen to vast amounts of real-time use data from up to a million elevators — each second. We devised a way to tap into the real-time data feed between KONE elevators and the IBM Watson IoT cloud and created intelligent, human-language discussions from these. Human-language equivalents were created for each elevator and environmental variable and Watson IoT action. Thus creating a language, tone-of-voice, and personality for our elevators & AI — and making it possible for them to have conversations that people could eavesdrop on. Nobody had ever translated machine-to-machine data into audible, intelligible and shareable conversations. Until now.

Creative Execution

We carefully crafted a real-time site, with a backend integrating through a custom API to the elevators, and with a front-end outputting up to 12 elevator’s sensory data in spoken and written language, in Messenger style conversations using IBM BlueMix speech synthesis. The site itself, with supporting video materials went live on 8 February 2017. Simultaneously, we kicked our social media campaign off, conducted numerous interviews and PR activities with hand-picked media and made the PR kit and additional information on 24/7 Connected Services available on our global site and a few country-specific websites. One week after the launch, we appeared on stage at the IBM Genius of Things event to create an ever growing cycle of exposure, which duly followed. After a second PR drive in March, Machine Conversations phenomenon was even picked up by and used as part of IBM Watson’s own TV Commercials in the US.

Results

In days, Machine Conversations became a pop-culture phenomenon. It reached 755 million listeners and viewers — with e.g. over 1300 media articles ranging from USA Today to Forbes to Financial Times to Quartz to BoingBoing. Over 7 million € in earned media. The sentiment of coverage was highly positive and helped KONE to sharpen its position as an innovative company vs its competitors. Proactive demand creation for the service with clients wanting to know more about it – very unusual for the very low-interest elevator maintenance business. People waited for an average of 10 messages on the website – and gathered a good understanding about a complex service in very short time.

For the first time, real-time machine-to-machine conversations were translated into human language — making it possible for people to hear what goes on in the minds of elevators and an AI-driven cloud — sparking worldwide attention and becoming a pop-culture phenomenon. By targeting directly to an expert audience and potential building managers via e-newsletters to potential customers, amplified by massive earned media and social exposure, we had our target groups spend time with the service, which made them immediately understand what the new service is all about.

The campaign was targeted at 1) an expert audience of AI, IoT and Elevator specialists 2)potential buyers of elevator maintenance services-tens of thousands of facility managers around the world, whose daily job it is to take care of the buildings we live and work in, and 3) the world’s media, which helped amplify our campaign in a matter of days. Instead of paid advertising, we relied completely on PR work prior, during and after the launch to create exposure and amplify our message. Tone-wise, we demystified Machine Learning and Machine Intelligence and turned them into lovable tangible and human-sized executions. To further gain credibility and visibility, we utilized our cooperation with IBM and Watson and the power of those brands. Those exposed to the campaign were led on a path to first hear machines talk, view a descriptive video — and then request KONE for further information.