Amigo Anônimo (Anonymous Friend) is a Facebook Messenger chatbot operated by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) Brazil. It was launched in 2017 as part of a new AA campaign to address the rising rate of teen drinking and mark the organization’s 70th anniversary in Brazil.
The campaign was designed to increase AA’s brand awareness and directly address issues of alcoholism among teens in order to increase their attendance at AA meetings. The AA chatbot achieved this by providing teens with the opportunity to take the first step toward seeking help through a familiar, nonpublic and impersonal one-on-one medium, without having to attend an AA meeting.
Key findings include:
- YouTube and Vimeo videos are an effective way to drive teenagers to find chatbots and start conversations. Allowing teens to start the conversation gives them the sense that they are in control and are not being told what to do.
- Facebook Messenger is a powerful and effective tool to bring more members to an organization, but it is constrained by an organization’s offline capacity to support members beyond Messenger conversations.
- Facebook policies limit the ability to make chatting with an organization totally anonymous for the end user.
