The Brief

To help launch meditation without distraction, Headspace partnered with RAIN to bring the popular service onto a range of voice-first platforms.

The Approach

Opening new pathways to meditation that overcome the distractedness that comes with using screen-based mobile devices, RAIN reimagined meditation experience across three voice-driven platforms — Google’s Assistant, Amazon’s Alexa, and Microsoft’s Cortana — using our proprietary conversational design and management platform, Voxa. To integrate seamlessly into conversational channels, users can cue up voice-led meditation across all devices where these assistants are available, including speakers, headphones, and more. The experience features custom audio to lead guided exercises, as well as a robust conversational repertoire, where a single Headspace voice experience can access nearly 500 responses and reprompts.

The Outcome

In just two months, Headspace reached the same number of monthly active users via voice as it took to amass on mobile over 40 months. Nearly 90% of users are returning for another session via voice.

The Brief

To help combat steadily declining sales and diminishing relevance, Campbell’s asked RAIN to reimagine their entire approach to digital.

The Approach

A thorough review of Campbell’s digital ecosystem revealed a striking finding: across all 22 of the brand’s audience segments, dinner was consistently the biggest problem. We found that recipe views drive sales for Campbell’s cooking brands, and that dinner recipes have four times the traffic off all their other pages combined. With these insights, we reimagined Campbell’s entire ecosystem from the ground up, creating “Campbell’s Kitchen,” the first CPG branded skill for Amazon. With Campbell’s Kitchen, users had a coach in the kitchen that helped them solve dinner one meal at a time.

The Outcome

As a multi-platform voice-enabled destination, “Campbell’s Kitchen” created mealtime solutions, but also drove relevance for Campbell’s entire portfolio of cooking brands, aiding in both discovery and preparation. For users that engaged with our skill, we saw a 30% increase in cart size and frequency of purchase in-store.

The Brief

Warner Bros. approached RAIN to help create a break-through companion experience for their upcoming WWII drama, Dunkirk, using novel voice-driven gaming mechanics.

The Approach

The Destination: Dunkirk skill (launched in mid-2017) was one of the first Alexa skills that leveraged a multimodal approach using not only voice, but also an accompanying mobile or desktop experience. Users would play through three separate but overlapping audio-driven CYOA stories, and upon completion of those stories, the skill would generate a custom visual comic book that reflects the steps you took within the skill. Once the user finished the story, the skill would send them a custom link where they could go online to download & share their custom comic strip.
RAIN was responsible for the voice design and technical development of the full experience, which included the skill itself and the online web experience. RAIN also worked in locked step with Warner Bros, Christopher Nolan's production company Syncopy, and talent agency Formosa consulting on the production of the audio story files.

The Outcome

Destination: Dunkirk received top-level promotion in the Alexa skill store, generated significant media buzz and has seen well above-average re-engagement rates from users to date along with a 4-star average rating.

The Brief

P&G came to us to explore voice as a means to reinforce Tide’s leading reputation as “the go-to stain-solver” and create an experience around moments it had a right to own.

The Approach

We focused on conceiving a voice experience that would be equally helpful at home and on the go, spanning the Tide product spectrum from detergents to Tide To Go pens. A key insight surrounded solving the “know” moment - when a stain strikes, consumers have their hands full, and often dirty, they need fast, reliable answers and a hands-free interface could be truly helpful to bridge from problem to solution. The skill we designed and built spans over 200 stain types, providing step-by-step instructions and utilizing the Alexa app card functionality and account linking.

The Outcome

This skill became a quick hit with numerous 5-star reviews and hundreds of users-per-day, providing informational assistance that translated into a strong emotional resonance with the brand, while also acting as an engine for Tide to gain new consumer insights. The authority of the skill has elevated it to be surfaced naturally through unbranded search queries on Alexa.

The Brief

To help drive greater engagement with fans in an increasingly competitive media environment, RAIN was tasked with developing a winning NFL-specific voice experience.

The Approach

The strategy centered on driving participation with the brand beyond fantasy, finding new ways to increase game interest and viewership, specifically around Thursday Night Football (TNF). RAIN worked closely with Amazon and the NFL to develop the experience, which featured over 300 questions, the ability to share your score against other players nationwide, and a game mechanic that focused on tying trivia to specific reasons to watch upcoming games. Additionally, we created scripts and helped manage the recording of special guest host Marshawn Lynch, who ultimately became the face and voice of the experience. A first for an Alexa skill, we also integrated automatic Facebook sharing featuring quips from Marshawn.

The Outcome

The NFL Trivia Skill launched in September 2017 and ran through the end of December, amassing tens of thousands of uses, almost a thousand Facebook shares and 4-star rating.

The Brief

With travelers increasingly expecting hotels to mirror the technologies of their homes, Marriott approached RAIN to find ways conversational AI could enhance the 
guest experience.

The Approach

After auditing the Marriott digital ecosystem, RAIN worked with Marriott to bring three different conversational experiences to life, each of which enhanced the guest experience, leveraged Marriott’s existing digital infrastructure, and drove measurable cost savings. First, a pilot program with the Aloft hotel brand deployed in-room voice devices acting as “concierges” to answer common questions and provide local guidance. Our second experience employed a chatbot guests could turn to for mundane tasks like requesting a wake up call, simply by texting commands to a designated phone number. Lastly, we developed a voice solution that allowed business travelers to control everything from tech to temperature in conference meeting rooms.

The Outcome

The Aloft pilot saw 37% guest engagement, but it also created operational efficiency for Marriott by diverting more than 4,000 “basic” requests away from the front desk staff. Guests rated the value of voice-driven experiences highly and provided feedback that these experiences differentiated the Marriott properties from other hotel brands. The pilot was then extended to another 12 locations, and Marriott has since made significant investments in incorporating voice services into its global footprint.

The Brief

With increasing voice engagement at home, Sesame Workshop approached RAIN to reach the young fans of its iconic television program through a conversational experience that was safe, fun and educational.

The Approach

We wanted to create a voice experience that would excite and engage kids with every use. To make the interaction kid-friendly, we had to build in the appropriate amount of repetition, grammar, and language for the target age group, while still making each interaction a surprise. To achieve this, we broke down existing audio recordings of Elmo into small, independent snippets that could be reimagined to create thousands of new sentences and interactions, enabling the skill to serve up a variety of responses to continue delighting children throughout the experience.

The Outcome

The “Sesame Street” skill allows children, with parental consent, to engage creatively with Elmo via voice. The skill uncovered surprising insights as to how quickly kids embrace voice experiences, with over 60% return user engagement. Sesame Street’s skill was awarded Top Digital Product by the International Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Association.