This year again, Bouygues Telecom is setting up a number in 06 and an AI to send messages to Santa Claus on WhatsApp. The wisest and luckiest children will even be able to see it live on video…
Do your children dream of chatting with Santa Claus? If they are not lucky enough to meet him at the foot of a fir tree, in front of a fireplace or in a shopping center, nothing is lost: Bouygues Telecom is back again this year with its successful operation #AllôPapaNoël for the fourth consecutive time. To be able to talk to the big red man, nothing could be simpler! Santa Claus having become hyper connected, all you have to do is write to him on WhatsAp on 06 25 12 25 12 – the number is not the same as last year – to receive a personalized video – and not pre-recorded. A free service accessible to everyone, including those who are not with the operator. The operation will start on November 22, 2022 – yes, Christmas is a month early! And from 1er December, some may even have the chance to meet Mrs. Claus and win many gifts. Something to please the little ones, but also have fun with friends by sending them a funny message!
Santa Claus number: the magic of technology
To receive a fully personalized video from Santa Claus, go to the WhatsApp application and send a message to 06 25 12 25 12. You must write a text that the red man will declaim, indicating details that the child or – the adult – is the only one to know, such as his first name, that of one of his relatives, the list of gifts he would like to receive, the good things – or the nonsense – he has done during the year… A few seconds later – it may take a little longer if the servers are too busy – you will receive a video in the WhatsApp conversation in which Santa Claus will recite the text you sent him from his office, the mail room, the gift factory, his living room, or even in front of his sleigh. As you can receive up to 15 messages per WhatsApp account, you can even trick the child into believing that the old gentleman is watching him carefully before the holidays – that will teach him to do silly things!
But behind a simple video actually hides a huge amount of work, which required technological prowess. Bouygues Telecom had to ask the digital studio BETC Fullsix to create algorithms especially for the occasion. They then combined them with text-to-speech technology from the company Voxygen. To put it simply, an artificial intelligence (AI) performs linguistic analysis of the text to understand how the words should be pronounced, then renders the audio in real time from a digital voice. Moreover, creating this voice required the recording of a specific lexical field by a real actor. The goal is to cover as many sounds of the French language as possible and expressions specific to the language of Santa Claus. It is from these recordings that the AI created a model of the voice of the famous red man. Yes, that’s also the magic of Christmas!