An inside look at BBC Earth's chatbot for the 'Real Happiness' project

BBC Earth America releases chatbot, that sends out customized animal videos as part of the Real Happiness mission to make users smile.

BBC Earth launched the Real Happiness project to bring joy to the people / BBC

Talk to our Happybot on Facebook Messenger to build a moment that’s personalised to you #RealHappiness pic.twitter.com/8EaPUD92lI

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) March 8, 2017

Based on the results of a recent study by BBC Earth and Berkeley University, that reveal that watching nature documentaries can trigger happiness, BBC Earth launched the Real Happiness project. The idea is to bring joy to as many people as possible by connecting them to the natural world. As part of the project, BBC released the 'Happybot' chatbot on Facebook Messenger on March 8th.

During the five-minute chat conversation with the 'Happybot', users have to indicate their location and current state of happiness with the help of emojis. Users then have to answer three questions related to their personal preferences concerning animals, activities and mood.

Afterwards, the chatbot generates the personal "real happiness moment", a customized 45-second video that shows clips of wild animals in their natural habitat. After having selected their current mood again, users are invited to subscribe in order to receive more "packages of happiness" on a daily or weekly basis or start another chat with the 'Happybot'.

Lana Zöllner is a research analyst at VAST MEDIA, a media research and consulting company based in Berlin that provides international television industry leaders with qualitative competitive market analysis of digital entertainment and content marketing.

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