Burger King Launches Commercial That Triggers ‘OK Google’

Sapna Maheshwari, reporting for The New York Times:

A video from a Burger King marketing agency showed the plan in action: “You’re watching a 15-second Burger King ad, which is unfortunately not enough time to explain all the fresh ingredients in the Whopper sandwich,” the actor in the commercial said. “But I got an idea. O.K. Google, what is the Whopper burger?”

Prompted by the phrase “O.K. Google,” the Google Home device beside the TV in the video lit up, searched the phrase on Wikipedia and stated the ingredients.

But within hours of the ad’s release — and humorous edits to the Whopper Wikipedia page by mischievous users — tests from The Verge and BuzzFeed showed that the commercial had stopped activating the device.

Sort of a jackass move on Burger King’s part, but it was harmless, and it certainly got them a lot of publicity. I’m sure they expected Google to shut them down — what they wanted were all these news stories about the prank.

My question: If the commercial had used “Hey Siri” or “Alexa” instead of “OK Google”, how long would it have taken for Apple or Amazon to cut it off? And why didn’t they address Siri or Alexa?

★ Wednesday, 12 April 2017