What was likely hatched as a clever ad campaign for Burger King has instead upset the audience the Whopper-maker was trying to reach.
The campaign—created by Ogilvy-owned agency David Madrid—ran last July and only lasted a few hours on Twitch. It resurfaced last week, however, after the company tweeted a video (above) promoting its work.
The video, which now has more than a million views with no paid media behind it, shows how the agency exploited Twitch’s donation feature to promote Burger King’s $5 value meal without paying anything meaningful for its advertising. In fact, much of the effort was executed by a bot.
The issues stems from a feature that allows Twitch viewers to have a typed message read out loud by a computer whenever they donate money to a streamer. In this case, the agency targeted popular streamers and used a bot to donate $5 (the cost of a Burger King value meal) to have its message read out loud to everyone watching. David Madrid also captured the streamer's reaction to include in its promotional video.