• by Larissa Faw , July 2, 2018

Sprout Foods and agency Walrus are revealing the food brand's "first-of-a-kind" voice skill app to encourage parents to serve its products to their children. 

"This isn’t an ad," states Deacon Webster, co-founder/chief creative officer, Walrus, citing the fact audio skills for kids are the fastest growing category of skills for Amazon's voice assistant Alexa. "It’s a tool that can be used over and over again."

The "skill" is designed around three common mealtime circumstances. First, it plays songs about fruits, vegetables and plant-based proteins. For example, if a family is having a breakfast of oatmeal and blueberries, a talking plant character named “Sophie Sprout” will play a custom jingle, ranging from the “Blueberry Blues” to “Eat the Oatmeal.” If the meal doesn’t match a jingle, the skill will instead educate listeners about healthy food facts. 

The “Mealtime Adventure” guides parents and kids through the classic “here comes the airplane” style spoon-feeding tactics where users can pretend their spoons are airplanes, choo-choo trains, or food that’s being chased by a stampede of wild animals.

The final skill tracks the consumption of a baby food pouch to coincide as Sophie Sprout encourages young children to take sips along with what  the brand  calls "fun" sounds.

The platform debuts first as an Amazon Alexa skill, before expanding later this year as a Google Home voice app. 

There is a paid social campaign featuring custom animation that runs across Facebook and Instagram to drive parents to the application. 

“In the voice space apps and skills are 100% user initiated, so brands need to bring something useful to the table or else they’ll be ignored,” says Webster.