Lingo Media's technology speaks to Chinese government

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Michael Kraft has his sights set high.

As president and CEO of Lingo Media - a Toronto-based company that provides print and online education products - Kraft is at the helm of a venture that could take advertising and product placement to a new level.

He calls it online embedded conversational advertising.

"It is a whole new category," Kraft said. If the idea takes off, advertisers would be able to engage their target audience in an interactive format.

How does it work? It's simple, really, Kraft said. The advertising vehicle is Speak2Me, an online program that teaches ESL students how to speak conversational English through situational lessons and modules.

Take, for example, a lesson on the most basic of North American rituals: ordering coffee. In the lesson, the student would be able to enter Joe's Coffee Shop and order a double-double.

Now substitute the generic coffee shop with Starbucks and the double-double with a frappuccino and you can see where Kraft is headed.

It doesn't matter if the situation calls for the student to be the customer ordering the coffee or the barista preparing it, the result is the same: a familiarity with the advertisers' products.

There are multiple benefits for the student. Not only is he able to participate in a virtual reality where he is speaking English, but he is able to get competent one-on-one assistance with pronunciation, something that is often lacking in many countries where ESL teachers are few and class sizes are large.

Lingo Media launched the program in beta-testing mode in March, offering it free of charge in the world's largest market - China.

"The response has been amazing," Kraft said.

Already, the Beijing municipal government has bought into the idea, using the software to train 300,000 of its civil servants in preparation for August's Olympic games. Using virtual situations, government officials will be able to practice speaking conversational English before the influx of tourists begins.

Liu Yang, the deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Government Foreign Affairs Office, applauded the program.

"Spoken English is a particular challenge," Yang said in a press release. "To truly learn conversational English, you need to have someone to speak to. I am especially grateful to Speak2Me for creating this excellent program to help us achieve this goal and to build on it in the future."

Lingo Media already has extensive experience working with the Chinese government, having landed a contract to produce English-as-a-second-language (ESL) textbooks for students across the country more than a decade ago.

Now through its Speak2Me division, the company will be able to offer even more access to the country's English-starved residents.

"It's a very effective tool to complement a textbook," Kraft said of the new online technology, acknowledging it doesn't replace a textbook's ability to teach grammar.

Although still in its testing stage, Kraft is confident the technology will become a hit world-wide, where the demand for English is growing.

"The global opportunity is large with 1.6 billion people learning English," he said. "The response from users has been great."

He expects the program to go live in September and hopes advertisers will see the enormous benefit of joining.

"It's been fun and very exciting," Kraft said. "It's been a very easy sell so far."