ROTHCO, PART OF ACCENTURE INTERACTIVE Dublin, IRELAND
Idea Creation
ROTHCO, PART OF ACCENTURE INTERACTIVE Dublin, IRELAND
Production
ROTHCO, PART OF ACCENTURE INTERACTIVE Dublin, IRELAND
Additional Company
WARNER MUSIC London, UNITED KINGDOM
Credits
Name
Company
Position
Conor Cunniffe
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
Copywriter
Rob Maguire
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
Creative Director
Shane O’Riordan
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
Design Director
Bronagh O'Donnavan
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
Strategist
Aisling Clarke
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
Art Director
Sam Caren
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
Art Director
Niall Eccles
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
Developer
Hannah Gallagher
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
Post Producer
Jessica Derby
Rothco | Accenture Interactive
Executive Producer
Cristiane Schmidt
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
Art Director, Designer, Motion Designer, Editor, Stop Motion Artist
Raphael DaSilva
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
Art Director, Designer, Motion Designer, Illustrator, Animator
Gabriel Teixeira
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
Art Director, Designer, Motion Designer, 3D Generalist
Paul Power
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
Video Editor
Ray Swan
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
Agency Creative Director
Jen Speirs
Rothco Part of Accenture Interactive
Executive Creative Director
Alan Kelly
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
Chief Creative Officer
Richard Carr
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
CEO | MD Accenture Interactive
Patrick Hickey
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
Executive Chairman
Zara Flynn
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
Managing Partner Rothco Accenture Interactive
Sean Cushen
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
Senior Account Manager
Lauren McNinney
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
Agency Resource & Operations
Clair Fleming
Rothco, part of Accenture Interactive
Agency Resource & Operations
Background
As part of Warner Music Group’s corporate social responsibility, they support initiatives in music with positive social impact. Musicians have long used their art to help with speech sound disorders (including WMG’s Ed Sheeran), so this area was a perfect fit.
Speech and language therapists have an arsenal of tools at their disposal which can help their patients. Most of these patients are children, however, which raises a problem that most tools can’t overcome - how to keep kids engaged in their therapy.
We set out to provide speech and language therapists with a unique and accessible new tool that could help their patients practise the sounds they struggle with in a way that doesn’t bore them: by reimagining speech therapy within the world of popular music, using the same easily accessible technology that these patients use to stream music itself.
Describe the creative idea
Repetition is key to overcoming a Speech Sound Disorder, but for kids, repetition is boring. Except when it happens in music. On average people stream 26.9 hours of music a week, while speech and language therapists struggle to get young patients to spend the recommended 20 minutes per week performing practice exercises. We utilised a music streaming service to combine these two worlds, tapping into the raw data contained in song lyrics to isolate and categorise phonemes as units of data. Warner Music teamed up with Apple Music to analyse over 70 million song lyrics, isolating songs in which particular sounds occur in particular patterns that are beneficial for speech therapy. These songs were collated into Saylists: playlists categorised by problem sounds, providing an easy, accessible, and enjoyable way for kids to practise the sounds they have trouble with, simply by singing along to their favourite songs.
Describe the strategy
Our algorithm was initially developed and tested on smaller sets of lyric data, with the rules refined by both data analysts and speech and language therapists. Confounding factors were identified and removed through composing of additional rules. Consultation with speech and language therapists also provided the target phonemes that were the most common sources of difficulty in the English Language, and a list of ten were chosen. A linguistic analysis of sounds in speech therapy is not dissimilar to linguistic analysis of poetry, or lyrics. This meeting of two worlds is particularly relevant when our target audience was considered: a group which overlaps both the audience for pop music, and the age-group most likely to have a Speech Sound Disorder: young people. Saylists provides this cohort with an easily accessible way to practise the sounds they struggle with in a way that’s fun, engaging and – importantly – not boring
Describe the execution
Through a combination of data analysts and speech and language therapists we developed an algorithm to analyse song lyrics for specific sounds occurring with a certain frequency, as well as other conditions such as proximity to similar sounds and placement within a sentence. Consultation with speech and language therapists also provided the target phonemes that were the most common sources of difficulty in the English Language, and a list of ten were chosen for analysis. The algorithm analysed over 70 million songs in search of those that demonstrated genuine therapeutic value - the largest data analysis of lyrics ever. All were scored and ranked. Songs that scored highest and fit listener profile (the latter a crucial human curation element necessary for audience appeal) were compiled into Saylists categorised by problem sound.
List the results
Within a week of launch, Saylists were already being recommended by therapists, and used in therapy sessions; the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapy expressed their excitement at the project’s release, and the department of English Language Teaching at Cambridge University has gone so far as to publish lesson plans to bring Saylists into classrooms. The project was enthusiastically welcomed and praised around the globe, reaching an audience of over 42.5 million purely through earned media and word of mouth. Due to these results, Apple Music are now developing the project for other music in other languages.