Kids have a natural aversion to brushing their teeth. Our research showed that 75% of toddlers lose focus while brushing, and most only last 30 seconds before calling it quits.

So we went straight to the source. After extensive research, testing and close collaboration with kids, we figured out the exact song structure needed to keep them engaged for the full two minutes of brushing – a mix of repetition, easy-to-follow instructions, a catchy hook, humorous reward moments, unique character voices and animal sound design.

We then took that formula and applied it across popular music genres like funk, country, Latin, even swing—each sung by a different animal character like Tooth Rex, a lovable dinosaur with the perfect MC voice to get kids in the groove.

We even consulted dentists to incorporate proper brushing instructions, and musical composers to seamlessly integrate them into the songs as part of the fun.

Kids have a natural aversion to brushing their teeth and have short attention spans, which makes brushing time a dreaded part of the day for both kids and parents. Our research showed that 75% of toddlers lose focus while brushing their teeth, and most only last 30 seconds before calling it quits.

So Colgate partnered with Google to create Brush with Me – a voice application designed to get kids excited to brush their teeth. They can choose from a variety of friendly animal characters, each with their own two-minute brush-along song. With dentist-approved brushing instructions set to the beat of various music genres, kids learn to brush while letting their imaginations run wild.

But, one small problem – Google Assistant was designed for adults. It has trouble understanding kids and the unpredictable things they say.

So we taught Google how to speak kid.

In our voice experience, we engage kids with questions like “Who do you want to brush with today? You can say Tooth Rex or Mamba the Monkey.” Now, any adult would respond by saying one of those options verbatim. And that’s exactly what most voice apps anticipate in their conversation design. But what happens when kids say: “Toof Wex”, “Dino” or “No, I want a horsey”?

In order to teach Google to understand the idiosyncratic language of kids, we needed to anticipate how they think, how they pronounce and how they respond.

Through extensive live testing with kids, we collected data on hundreds of speech-to-text variations and unpredictable toddler responses. We then programmed the code to accurately predict all of these adorable pronunciations and unexpected answers. So Brush with Me is able to select the correct response based on what kids are trying to say as much as what they actually say.

We also applied Google Cloud’s Machine Learning Engine, so the more kids interact with Brush with Me, the more it understands. Live testing revealed our application was initially able to pick up 77% of kid speak – 2.5X more accurate than other voice apps – and improving every day.

For a fully immersive user experience, we replaced Google’s robot voice with Tooth Rex – our own custom character narration of the entire experience, from invocation to sign off. So kids have a friend to interact with every time.