Alexa and Soki

Alexa and La Zona de Soki (2021)

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🎯 Goal and client

Grupo Planeta and the publisher LunwerGG wanted to create a unique transmedia experience to accompany the book “Warzone. Los secretos de Soki” (“Warzone: Soki’s secrets”). It’s the first transmedia Alexa skill in Spain and the Spanish-speaking world, created from the outset to accompany the book and expand the story and experiences in it. You can also buy the book through the Alexa skill.

💬 Voice interaction

“Alexa, abre la zona” (“open the zone”) is one of the phrases to talk to the YouTuber and streamer Soki on Alexa. Thanks to this voice skill that accompanies the book “Warzone. Los secretos de Soki”, you can chat with Soki and learn his best-kept secrets.

Although some content is free if you don’t have the book (to hear it, say “cuéntame algo”, “tell me something”), the best way to get the most out of this skill is with the book in hand, unlocking the full content. To do that, say “activar la experiencia” (“activate the experience”) when you open the app.

Once you’ve unlocked it, you can access the exclusive content: anecdotes or quizzes, indicated in the book along with the phrase you need to say to Alexa. Each quiz has five questions. Depending on the quiz, you just answer “A”, “B” or “C”, “A” or “B”, or “Verdadero” or “Falso” (true or false).

The official way to open the app on Alexa is: Alexa, abre la zona.

🤖 Channel

Amazon Alexa. A multimodal experience for devices with a screen (multimodal) and without a screen (voice-first).

🌍 Reach: languages and countries.

Available in every country that uses Alexa in Spanish from Spain (es-ES), Mexico (es-MX) and the United States (es-US).

💻 Which technologies and libraries did we use?

Amazon Alexa features:

APL-A for the audio experience,
APL for the full multimodal experience on devices with a screen, including the home screens and touch selection of quiz answers,
Alexa Shopping Actions (beta) to add the book “Warzone. Los secretos de Soki” to the Amazon cart.

💎 How did we build this voice app?

We built the product together with Grupo Planeta. We conceptualized and defined the minimum viable product, designed the conversational experience and built the Alexa skill around the available content. We went through several product iterations, each with beta testing with users and the resulting lessons and improvements. We designed the book unlock, which asks for a word from the book to access the full experience.

We prioritized a varied conversational experience for fans, with different kinds of quizzes and anecdotes, where users are in control of what they want to do, while staying robust to the different ways Alexa users express themselves.

🗓 Key dates

10/25/2021: Soft launch. Days spent improving the model that understands users (NLU).
10/27/2021: Official launch, with a live demo of the experience by Soki on his official channels (Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and so on).
11/05/2021: Featured in the Amazon Alexa newsletter.

🔗 More information

The book “Warzone. Los secretos de Soki” in the Amazon store:
The Alexa skill in the Amazon Alexa store: