Voice interfaces and home assistants have risen in popularity in the past decade, making many chores easier, but also opening doors for exploitation and abuse. Burger King gamed the system when they recorded a 15- second ad, at the end of which they activated viewers’ Google home assistant by asking “Ok Google – what is The Whopper?”, effectively extending their ad to 30 seconds as the assistant promptly obeyed the command.
The controversial campaign sparked a heated discussion on the intrusion of modern technology and the ethical limits of advertising. It generated 9.3 million global impressions, with 135 million in earned media, and it trended on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Google.