For a few hours, Burger King demonstrated what the future of advertising could look like. A television ad from the fast food company asked Google's voice recognition Home assistant: "What is the Whopper burger?" – and it sent devices in homes across the country into reported haywire.
Read more: Google Home is now available in the UK – we put it to the test
The advertisement, which debuted in the US on April 12, saw a Burger King employee stand in front of a camera for 15 seconds. "It's unfortunately not enough time to explain all the fresh ingredients in a fresh Whopper sandwich," the character says. "But I've got an idea".
The camera closes in on the apparent Burger King employee who says: "Okay Google, what is the Whopper burger?" The phrase is intended to trigger the Google Assistant, the firm's AI helper embedded in the Google Homedevice and some phones running the latest version of Android.
For those with the Home speaker, the question caused the device to wake-up and conduct a Google search looking for an answer. For many results, Google provides an answer from Wikipedia, and the Whopper burger is no exception.
The Wikipedia entry for the Whopper burger had its first line edited last week. This is the line that is read out by the Google Home device.
"The Whopper is a burger, consisting of a flame-grilled patty made with 100 per cent beef with no preservatives or fillers, topped with sliced tomatoes, onions, lettuce, pickles, ketchup, and mayonnaise, served on a sesame-seed bun," the page was edited to say.
However, it has now been changed back to its original version and Wikipedia moderators have locked the page from being edited. The page's history also shows a flurry of edits on April 12 and April 13 – once the ad had been aired.
It now appears Google has disabled the advert from working. The change, The Verge reports, came three hours after the advert was first discovered and shown.
The publication writes that Google Home no longer responds when it hears the commercial, but if a person in a room asks the question, it still works. WIRED has reached out to Google for comment on the issue and will update this article when it is received. This specific voice recognition feature is rumoured to be coming to the device as part of a future update. It will mean that only registered voices will be able to activate the assistant. This will prevent adverts taking advantage in this way, but also could stop children ordering online shopping, for example.
The incident isn't the first time home voice recognition systems have been turned on by their phrase words being uttered elsewhere. In January, Amazon's Echo was activated in the US when a TV presenter responded to a news report by saying "I love the little girl saying 'Alexa ordered me a dollhouse'." The utterance, it is said, caused Amazon Echo devices nationwaide – using the keyword 'Alexa' – to wake-up and try to order toys.
The Burger King advert potentially shows how advertisers could try to directly get into homes and communicate with customers in different ways. Although, it should be noted that Google Home would read anything that is written on the top of a Wikipedia page – including detrimental edits.
Neither the Amazon Echo or Google Home are using adverts to directly talk to their owners at present. However, Google was criticised last month for including an audio ad for Beauty and the Beast at the end of some answers it was asked to give. Google, at the time, said the recording "wasn't intended to be an ad".
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
