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 makes it clear our intention, 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 Home was 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

Code & Theory

Crimson Hexagon

YouTube

Twitter Insights Dashboard

Facebook Trends

Google Trends

Getting audiences to listen & engage with a TVC is a struggle. But a new audience that always listens and waits to engage has emerged in thousands of living rooms: voice-activated virtual assistants like the smart home center Google Home. So when BK needed to fit all of the fresh ingredients and taste qualifiers of The Whopper into a :15 second TVC, they did so with a commercial that spoke directly to both audiences in the living room – and intentionally activated Google Home to deliver viewers the full description of The Whopper that couldn’t fit in the TVC.

Don’t take our word for it. We knew having a third party verify our claims would add validity and ultimately taste appeal to our Whopper message. Google Home is a smart home centre which lets its owners ask questions and check facts pulled from Wikipedia.

Therefore, when we activated the Google Assistant search in the device, the result would come from Wikipedia’s entry for the Burger King Whopper and be validated by the site’s entry. And despite the small install base, there had been other widely reported instances of these smart home devices being set off by things they overheard. There-fore we felt the right activation had the chance to transcend the install base and become a buzz-worthy story, thereby spreading the Whopper message well beyond the media buy.

The Whopper is Burger King’s signature sandwich. It’s full of fresh ingredients and great taste qualifiers, so many that it can be difficult to get them all in to a traditional TV commercial. Especially when you only have :15 seconds, which is Burger King’s typical unit length. And despite doing things such as flame grilling our beef in the Whopper since 1954 and cutting the toppings fresh daily, many Americans still don’t recognize these as what make the Whopper and Burger King different from our closest competitors. There-fore, we jump at the opportunity to highlight this point of difference within our competitive set anytime we can.