Voice activated devices such as Google Home are gaining adoption within US House-holds, with many keeping these devices in their living rooms near their TVs.

These devices are always listening to what is happening around them, which makes them useful for their owners who can ask them to check the weather or search for facts online. Which gave us the idea: what if a TV spot intentionally activated the Google Home in order to finish the message, effectively turning our :15 second commercial into a :30 that started on TV and ended on the device? So we aired a TV spot that ended with the question: “Ok Google, what is in the Whopper Burger?” and managed to trigger thousands of devices that started reading all the list of ingredients from The Whopper’s Wikipedia page.

We weren’t sure how long Google would allow our activation to work on their device, therefore everything was set to happen around a 24-hour period. The :15 commercial made our intention clear, to ask Google to tell the viewer about the Whopper through their Google Home device. This search is set off when our talent says into the camera “Okay Google” telling the device to react to what is said next “what is The Whopper burger?” At this point, any Google Home device within earshot would read aloud the Wikipedia entry for the Whopper. We first released the advert online, setting off a big internet response. So much so, Google blocked the specific audio clip hours later, ahead of our broadcast debut. But we were ready with other versions, so that Google wouldn’t have time to respond to block these and the Google Homes were activating again.

The idea earned 9.3 billion global impressions. It became a global trending topic on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Google Trends, making it Burger King’s most talked about TV spot and most engaged video in the brand’s history. The spot earned $35 mil-lion in US media, and created a 500% increase in brand mentions. Within 48 hours of initial launch, the spot was viewed organically 10 million times online. It totaled 15 mil-lion online-only views, vs. the 700,000 Google Home devices it targeted. Burger King became the first brand ever to use voice-activated tech to advertise a product, and started a debate around the limits of advertising and invasive technology. Within days after the spot aired, Google Home changed its software to recognize up to 6 voices only.

Sources:

Cision

ABMC

Weber Shandwick

Hawkeye Monitoring

Ketchum

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