SAYLISTS

Short List
TitleSAYLISTS
BrandWARNER MUSIC GROUP
Product/ServicePLAYLISTS
Category A05. Data / Insight
Entrant 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.

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. 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

Saylists is a first-of-its-kind approach to therapeutic repetition – one of the most widely used, and simultaneously mundane, speech articulation tools available to therapists. The key difference between the therapeutic repetition found in Saylists and that found within traditional therapeutic repetition is simple. Singing along to great songs is fun, repeating a few cold phrases off an A4 page isn’t. This sentiment is especially applicable to our target audience, a group which overlaps both the audience for pop music, and the age-group most likely to have a Speech Sound Disorder (SSD): 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 – most importantly – not boring.

Describe the execution

Saylists is a first-of-its-kind approach to therapeutic repetition – one of the most widely used, and simultaneously mundane, speech articulation tools available to therapists. The key difference between the therapeutic repetition found in Saylists and that found within traditional therapeutic repetition is simple. Singing along to great songs is fun, repeating a few cold phrases off an A4 page isn’t. This sentiment is especially applicable to our target audience, a group which overlaps both the audience for pop music, and the age-group most likely to have a Speech Sound Disorder (SSD): 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 – most importantly – not boring.

List the results

Saylists have been enthusiastically welcomed and praised by people around the globe, with Spain’s El Mundo newspaper describing it as ‘Apple’s next great invention’. Most important was the incredible response from the speech and language community. Saylists are 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 based on Saylists and how they can be used in classrooms. Due to the massive response, Apple Music are now planning to expand the project into other countries around the world, with playlists specific to languages beyond English.