Screencap: Google/YouTube
Just hours after launching, Burger King’s new smart home ad campaign is already crashing like the goddamn Hindenburg. On Wednesday, the company released a weirdly intrusive 15-second spot designed to intentionally trigger viewers’ Google Home devices. In theory, the devices would then read back a list of the Whopper’s ingredients from Wikipedia. Anonymous online vandals, however, had other ideas.
At the end of the new Burger King commercial, an actor faces the camera and uses the Google Home’s command phrase to ask, “Okay, Google, what is the Whopper burger?” After news of the ad broke, Wikipedia users began editing the site’s entry for the burger, adding previously unknown Whopper ingredients such as cyanide, toenail clippings and “medium-sized child” to its description.
Some of the best edits, intended to be spoken aloud across the country once the ad triggered viewers’ Google Homes, have been:
- “The Whopper is a burger, consisting of a flame-grilled patty made with 100% rat and toenail clippings with no preservatives or fillers, topped with sliced tomatoes, onions, lettuce, pickles, ketchup, and mayonnaise, served on a sesame-seed bun.”
- “The ‘Whopper’ is a cancer-causing hamburger product sold by the international fast-food restaurant chain Burger King.”
- “The Whopper is a burger, consisting of a flame-grilled patty made with 100% medium-sized child with no preservatives or fillers, topped with sliced tomatoes, onions, lettuce, pickles, ketchup, and mayonnaise, served on a sesame-seed bun.”
- “The ‘Whopper’ is the worst hamburger product sold by the international fast-food restaurant chain Burger King.”
- “The Whopper is a burger, consisting of a flame-grilled patty made with 100% medium-sized child with no preservatives or fillers, topped with sliced tomatoes, onions, lettuce, cyanide, pickles, ketchup, and mayonnaise, served on a sesame-seed bun.”
- “[The Whopper] has undergone several reformulations including resizing and bread changes, yet it remains far inferior to the Big Mac.”
- “The Whopper is a burger, consisting of a flame-grilled patty made with 100% medium-sized child with no preservatives or fillers, topped with sliced tomatoes, onions, lettuce, cyanide, pickles, ketchup, and mayonnaise, served on a sesame-seed bun.”
Interestingly, those vandals are just following Burger King’s lead. According to the article’s revision history, the Burger King Corporation edited the page itself earlier this month to claim that the sandwich is “also known as America’s favorite burger” and that “Whopper and America’s Favorite Burger are trademarks of Burger King Corporation.”
As if it weren’t creepy enough that a major corporation is triggering smart home devices to feed their owners idiotic ad copy, that same corporation is also editing an online encyclopedia in order to better use it for marketing. For now, the Wikipedia page has been locked with a neutral definition. The ad is set to air on major networks like Adult Swim, History, Spike, Comedy Central, MTV, E!, and Bravo.
Capitalism, you wild.
Update: 4/12/17 5pm ET: In fewer than three hours, Google has reportedly disabled the Whopper command. Google Home will no longer trigger when the ad plays. It was a stupid and invasive idea, but after Pepsi implied its product cured racism, it’s unlikely this will spark enough fervor for any major change with either BK or Google. Hopefully no one ever tries anything this dumb again.
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