Agency: Rothco
Client: The Times
Date: Jun 2018
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It was the speech president John F. Kennedy was supposed to make that fateful day in Dallas in 1963 when he was gunned down and silenced seemingly forever. But, through the power of artificial intelligence, The Times and creative agency Rothco brought JFK’s voice to the speech he never got to make that day, and took home the Creative Data Lions Grand Prix on Thursday.

Accenture agency Rothco was tasked with helping launch The Times’ ‘Find your voice campaign’ to its readers and potential readers around the world, with the objective of repositioning The Times as a paper that represents many differing voices.

Rothco spent months researching and collecting every single piece of available Kennedy analog audio. The final piece recreated, in his voice, the Dallas Trade Mart speech Kennedy never got to make 55 years ago, using bits of 831 speeches in the process. Combinations of sounds were selected and smoothed together by months of painstaking sound engineering to make it happen, a first for data enhanced creative storytelling.

Credits

Client: The Times

Agency: Rothco / Accenture Interactive

Patrick Hickey, Rothco: CEO

Alan Kelly, Rothco: Executive Creative Director

Paul Hughes, Rothco: Creative Strategy & MD

Richard Oakley, The Times/News UK & Ireland: Editor

Alan Byrnes, Rothco: Interactive Lead Producer

Ste Rogers, Rothco: Creative Director

Jill Byrne, Rothco: Public Relations

Sally Oldfield, Rothco: Operations

Shane O'Riordan, Rothco: Designer

Jenna Plant, Rothco: Producer

Paul Power, Rothco: Visual Editor

Lauren McNinney, Rothco: Voice Over Artist

Chris Pidcock, CereProc: Chief Technology Officer