Jordan O'BrienIt’s safe to say that those in the advertising world haven’t had the best of weeks. It all began with Pepsi’s controversial ad starring Kendall Jenner, and then United decided to ‘re-allocate’ one of its passengers by force. Thankfully the week isn’t over yet – with Burger King releasing yet another ad that has caused quite an uproar.
The new 15-second Burger King ad may seem harmless at first glance, but then in the final few seconds, the actor intentionally activates Google Homes and Android phones everywhere. This has annoyed quite a number of viewers, and rightly so.
There have been concerns in the past over privacy and the potential for smart speakers to miss-hear commands. Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant accidentally ordered doll houses for several viewers of a news programme. Coincidentally the newsreaders were discussing a report about a child ordering thousands of dollars’ worth of doll houses.
Burger King obviously wanted to get the viewers’ attention, and rather than allowing the ad describe the contents of the Whopper burger, viewers were more likely to listen to the Google Home. Points go to Burger King for creativity.
There is a problem with Burger King’s approach, however. Google Home’s default answer for the command “OK Google, what is a Whopper burger?” is simply the first line of the Wikipedia entry. Ahead of the ad campaign, Burger King changed that first line to read “The Whopper is a burger, consisting of a flame-grilled patty made with 100 percent beef with no preservatives or fillers, topped with sliced tomatoes, onions, lettuce, pickles, ketchup, and mayonnaise, served on a sesame-seed bun.” Originally the first line read “The Whopper sandwich is the signature hamburger product sold by the international fast-food restaurant chain Burger King and its Australian franchise Hungry Jack’s.”
When viewers picked up on the fact that Google was getting its answer from Wikipedia, they went to town on the Whopper’s Wikipedia entry. Some changed the entry to read-out profanity, while one person noted that the Whopper burger was laced with cyanide. Couple the public hijacking with the fact that this ad was scheduled to run between some of America’s most popular television shows, including The Tonight Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live, then Burger King was headed for disaster.
Thankfully, Google has now stepped in – deactivating the command. Now when someone asks “OK Google, what is a Whopper burger?”, the smart speaker will simply light up, but not answer.
Wikipedia has also responded with fury, with the terms of service clearly stating that pages shouldn’t be used for self-promotion. The company has since reverted the page to its original state and locked it for editing for the foreseeable future.