The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2013–2015
Samsung's Look at Me turns autism eye-contact therapy into a game — 60% improved
Cheil and Samsung turn eye-contact training for autistic children into a camera-based game; an 8-week trial found 60% improved.
Samsung Electronics · Cheil Worldwide
What it had to solve
One in 68 children under 8 is diagnosed with autism, and eye contact is a core challenge — yet clinics are scarce and costly. Samsung and Cheil set out to prove technology could deliver therapy anywhere, for free.
How it works
In 2013 Samsung Electronics and its long-time agency Cheil Worldwide asked a question that had nothing to do with selling phones: could technology help the roughly one in 68 children diagnosed with autism learn the eye contact that comes naturally to most people? Teamed with researchers from Seoul National University and Yonsei University, they started the 'Look at Me' project in October 2013.
The insight was that autistic children often prefer digital devices and respond to them calmly. So Cheil designed an app that looks like a game, not therapy: three themes (robot, dinosaur, space), 15 unlockable characters, 250+ sounds, and missions built on real clinical psychology methods. Instead of abstract face shapes, the missions used a database of 4,000 real photos of professional models showing seven emotions, and the phone's camera let each child practice with their own face.
After 15 months of development — 32 prototypes and about 1,500 tests — Look at Me launched in Korean and English in December 2014 and became free worldwide on Google Play. In the clinical trial, 19 children used it 15 minutes a day for 8 weeks; 60% showed improved eye contact with parents and others afterward.
Samsung was explicit that the app was not product promotion: 'Look at Me is not really to promote products but to translate Samsung's brand ideal into reality,' said the head of its brand strategy group. The brand message was delivered by the product itself.
Why it lands
- It started from a human problem — kids who avoid eye contact — rather than from a product feature.
- Game-like missions and the child's own face made therapy something children wanted to repeat, not endure.
- Clinical researchers co-designed it, so the play mechanics came from real treatment logic.
- Being free and on Google Play removed the cost barrier that keeps families from therapy.
- It let Samsung prove 'innovation for all' with an artifact instead of a slogan.
What it did
In an 8-week clinical trial with 19 children, 60% showed improved eye contact with parents and others. The app went free worldwide on Google Play, and Samsung framed it as its brand ideal made real: technology for all.
What you can take
A brand can demonstrate its purpose instead of advertising it: solve a painful, real problem with a free, well-made tool, and the brand idea is shown, not claimed.
Since then
Look at Me stayed available as a free app and became a fixture in Samsung's inclusive-innovation story. It showed that a phone camera and a well-designed game could deliver a therapeutic practice at scale, and it became a reference point for brand-purpose work — the same idea Samsung and Cheil later extended to other accessible products. The clinical result, a 60% improvement in eye contact among the 19 trial children, remains the most concrete evidence of the concept.
Sources
- Look at Me — Connect with the World (project page)
- Samsung's 'Look at Me' app by Cheil Worldwide helps autistic children communicate better
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