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Burger King Won't Take a Hint; Alters TV Ad To Evade Google's Block (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the old-switcheroo dept.

ewhac writes: Earlier this week, Burger King released a broadcast television ad that opened with an actor saying, "Ok, Google, what is the Whopper?" thereby triggering any Google Home device in hearing range to respond to the injected request with the first line from the Whopper's Wikipedia page. Google very properly responded to the injection attack by fingerprinting the sound sample and blocking it from triggering responses. However, it seems Burger King and/or its ad agency are either unwilling or congenitally incapable of getting the hint, and has released an altered version of the ad to evade Google's block. According to spokesperson Dara Schopp, BK regards the ad as a success, as it has increased the brand's "social conversation" on Twitter by some 300%. It seems that Burger King thinks that malware-laden advertising infesting webpages is a perfectly wonderful idea (in principle, at least), and has taken it to the next level by reaching through your TV speakers and directly messing with your digital devices. You may wish to consider alternate vendors for your burger needs.

8 of 606 comments (clear)

  1. Ok, Google... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... How do you program this thing to only recognize my voice.

  2. Alternate Vendors? No, I approve. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hell, I love this. Google Home, Alexa, et al. are CueCat 2.0, and anything that exposes to the general consumer how sketchy and seedy they are is a plus for mankind. I fucking salute Burger King for taking this bold step towards educating the citizens about Google Home and consumerism. I was going to have a healthy salad tonight, but, after reading this article, I'm going to walk my ass up to Burger King and have a goddamned Big Mac or whatever the hell it is they sell. I might not even eat it, because I hate burgers, but I want to give this company my money and support.

  3. Evil and Stupid, simple response by gurps_npc · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Google can easily modify it so any search at ALL mentioning Burger King now has the first result be the location of the nearest McDonald restaurant. When I say all searches, I mean ALL searches, even when you type it into google's main search page.

    Then tell BK that if they want this to stop, all they have to do is a) cease all attempts to game google's voice commands, b) publicly apologize, c) pay $100,000 to a charity of Google's choosing. and d) agree to never again be such a douchebag.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
    1. Re:Evil and Stupid, simple response by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well, the word they're using in the ad is "Whopper", so what about just describing its more common definition (which they should be doing anyway), which is a very, very, big lie?

      That'd not merely make their marketing ineffective, it would actually destroy the "Whopper" brand in the process, making absolutely certain people associate burgers-called-whoppers with dishonesty - well, that is, if these ads weren't doing that already.

      Much more effective than simply redirecting people to rival chains, which would be a temporary set back for Burger King at best.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  4. Easy solve for this by buss_error · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For what it's worth, my opinion is to do this:

    "OK Google, what's in a whopper?"
    "Hello, The Burger King(tm) Whopper - search results on Burger King(tm) have been removed due to terminal stupidity of the company. Enjoy a WhataBurger(tm), it's better anyway."

    --
    Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
  5. Re:BK = BLACKLISTED by alvinrod · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is it not possible to change the activation phrase for your digital device? It seems to me that leaving it at the default is about as intelligent as leaving the default administrator login and password for a router. Sure, no one should try to take advantage of you, and in an ideal world they wouldn't. However, this isn't an ideal world and hopefully this serves as a lesson to you with little actual harm done. Given that the harm done is essentially minimal, you should probably thank Burger King instead of admonishing them.

  6. Re: BK = BLACKLISTED by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This.

    Burger King isn't to blame, Google and the stupid people who want universal voice activation are.

  7. Re:I see this turning into virus scanners. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Aww, poor little Google has to actually do work to make money. Poor little babies.

    There are no "AI wars". Voice recognition backed by a database is not AI. What Google and the rest are doing today is no more advanced than ELIZA was 50 years ago, they just have a bigger database.