IBM Watson
IBM wanted to regain leadership in the tech space by owning cognitive technology. They would achieve this by launching Watson as a thinking machine for business.
IBM wanted to change how it did business, moving away from “selling boxes,” to building platforms and services that enable innovation. The leadership wanted to set an agenda for a new era, an era of thinking machines, and educate the public (and enterprise buyers), around how cognitive systems could enhance business.
I offered a simple question:
If you have a cognitive system that can learn anything -
who should teach it?
The next big IBM brand
We needed to achieve two goals -
1) Position cognitive AI as a transformative business technology.
2) Position IBM Watson as the industry leader.
As part of the IBM leadership team, I helped manage a constellation of agencies working across numerous aspects of the work.
The campaign was designed to show the human side of IBM’s most famous AI, Watson. Through conversation with Watson, we learn how human expertise is being scaled to give competitive advantage to businesses all over the world. We see how he learns, his shortcomings, and his human character, helping people outthink the toughest challenges in the world.
With the “Made with IBM” global campaign, we learned how to structure and refine brand hackathons, leveraging the Ogilvy and WPP networks, and bringing together the top-tier talent to focus on a new challenge. Launching IBM Watson required more resources than WPP had to offer to launch within the window the CEO had targeted. IBM assembled a brand leadership team to manage the numerous agencies working around the world on the launch.
Our task here was to launch IBM Watson as a brand, business unit, and ecosystem of product offerings.
Foundational concept
When a cognitive system can learn anything, who should teach it?
Watson scholars.
IBM would pull together a series of thought leaders to work with IBM Watson over the period of 1 year with the goal to create Watson apps that the public could use.
The apps would align with universal topics such as; education, finance, health, and business.
Part of the program would be to film the entire experience to create content to be shared as a documentary on Netflix, debunking the fear and anxiety around AI, and also showing the new roles needed to bring an AI to life. The first in the series would be a collaboration with Warren Buffet, developing an app with Watson that would help people plan their financial futures.
Early mock ups of thought leaders who could train IBM Watson.
Elon - Entrepreneurship, Oprah - Self empowerment, Neil - Science, Warren - Personal finance.
Documentary series about teaching Watson.
Mock-up. Warren Buffett teaches Watson to surf the stock market – creating an AI finance app for everyone.
World-leading experts teaching Watson today
Thought leaders from all areas of business, health, sports, and entertainment; brought together to teach Watson.
What is Watson learning today?
Coping with Humans: A support group for bots.
Strategically separate Watson from the industry – Carrie Fisher helps the industry come to terms with Watson.
Bob Dylan talks about lost love with Watson.
First TV spot to anchor the campaign.
Serena Williams discusses performance with IBM Watson.
Watson can use biometric data to help improve athletes performance on and off the field.
Ridley Scott talks about the future with IBM Watson.
The lines between sci-fi & science are blurring.
Ken Jennings & IBM Watson.
Ken Jennings, the Jeopardy champion, reunites with his nemesis to talk about their respective careers since that fateful day on the game show when he was unseated by Watson.
Joshua Carr, IBM Developer.
Educating audiences on the what/how/why of Watson.
Here you’ll learn a little about the product strategy.
Colbert on the Late Show.
Stephen Colbert talks about Bob Dylan and IBM Watson.
Watson identity explorations
Product features start to make their way into the identity system. Contributions from Athletics, IBM Design, and Ogilvy.
Cognitive experience design
Watson can understand a users explicit or unintended intentions, and can therefore augment the experience to bring added value to the user.
