The Times: JFK Unsilenced by Rothco
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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
