Bringing iconic artists back to life

In its latest radio campaign called 'Artificial Icons', Lucy resurrects icons such as Kurt Cobain, Prince and Biggie. With their authentic voices, filled with their passion for music, they explain why everyone should be choosing digital radio.

Flemish radio listeners tend to listen a lot to the radio: approximately 3.5 hours a day. And a great deal of them (41%) prefers to listen to digital radio. In 2020 only 38% listened to digital radio, which means that listening to digital radio is becoming more popular. According to the latest measurement concerning digital radio, held by Ipsos, 19% of all radio listeners prefer to listen via DAB+.

DAB+ is short for Digital Audio Broadcasting. It is a sustainable and future-oriented alternative for the packed FM waveband. DAB+ offers listeners more radio stations, better digital sound quality and free on-air reception throughout Flanders.

Voice AI

We can no longer ignore the fact that AI is ubiquitous. For example, chatGPT can write press releases and Midjourney is capable of illustrating an entire comic book. Thus, generative AI is already capable of creating its own images and texts. But a lesser known type of AI can also create synthetic voices. This specific form of technology was being used to mimic the voices of the deceased musical icons.

So, various interviews with these artists, talking about their music, were analysed. These videos were connected to a voice generator so that it could imitate the voices of the icons, including their timbre and tempo. The clips were also used to analyse their way of speaking; the creative team added typical stop words, pauses and the artists’ word choices. As a result, Kurt, Prince & Biggie Smalls invade your living room to remind you of the benefits DAB+ brings along.
Lucy

This awareness campaign is an ode to the hard work artists have put together. Now we can finally listen to their music in the best circumstances.

Biggie

Kurt

Prince

Our AI model is built to grasp the logic and emotions behind words. And rather than generate sentences one-by-one, it’s always mindful of how each utterance ties to preceding and succeeding text. This zoomed-out perspective allows it to intonate longer fragments convincingly and with purpose. And finally you can do this with any voice you want