The campaign objective – getting people with asthma to stop ignoring their symptoms and seek medical advice - gave pause for discussion. How could this attitude change be achieved?

People typically act on information if it is relevant and comes from a trusted source. A friendly, conversational manner – as if it were advice given by a friend – puts people at ease and makes them more apt to listen.

The challenge was how to replicate a discussion about health with a trusted friend? This, we discovered, could be achieved using the latest AI technology. A chatbot, designed properly, could adopt the friendly, caring persona required to mimic a human conversation.

Chatbots are also adept in reaching audiences in places they already dwell online and capturing data to measure success.

‘Tabatha’ the first pharmaceutical industry chatbot for global patient education, broke new ground by fusing Artificial Intelligence with Facebook Messenger.

We launched on World Asthma Day, May 2, 2017 for this 4-week campaign via two global-led social media channels. Key executional elements:

Compliance and data privacy – Enlisting Facebook support and working with an experienced AI technology partner ensured data protection and compliance with regulations

Conversation flows – Carefully chosen language, free text and emotion detection technology were vital to encourage Tabatha users to open up about their symptoms over Facebook Messenger

Testing - Extensive testing removed technical glitches and trained Tabatha to respond effectively

Social content - ‘Mike’, an animated character from earlier campaigns explained the chatbot through short videos leading up to and on launch day. A downloadable ‘Talk to Your Doctor’ guide encouraged people to seek advice

Paid strategy – Retargeting, a new Facebook paid offering was used within the 4-week, paid social programme

Stakeholder engagement - Alerts sent to key Instagram influencers identified from previous campaigns.

Tabatha surpassed every target objective set:

(Data collection from 2 – 31 May 2017)

Key overall business success metric - Measurable attitudinal shift resulting from engagement with Tabatha:

Over one quarter (26%) of people self-identified with asthma symptoms say ‘yes’ to intend to see a doctor – 26% conversion rate vs. target industry average intent conversion rate of 1-2% (set for consumer brands with less restrictions) – 1,200% difference

3.3million reach (vs target 2.8m)

~9,000 social content engagements (vs target >4,000) and >half a million video views

3,412 conversations (vs target 2,000) in the first week and 1,400 people with symptoms identified

In comparison, an Adidas Women’s chatbot using multi-channel promotion initiated 2,000 conversations across 2 weeks (Marketing Week).

An additional 500+ conversations were initiated organically once paid promotion completed

~1/3 of those with symptoms downloaded Talk to Your Doctor guide - 34% conversion rate vs industry average of 11%