The fast-food giant Burger King is currently heavily advertising on the streaming platform Twitch. They are using a trick that costs them only a few dollars. The streamers are angry.
This is what Burger King is doing: The advertising agency Ogilvy is currently conducting a controversial PR campaign for Burger King. They donate small amounts on Twitch. These are then read out by computer voices in the stream.
The donation text states something like “I donated 5 dollars because you get a Whopper, fries, and a small drink for only 5 dollars in the Burger King app.”
Every viewer of the stream and the streamer themselves hears this text. So Burger King is advertising in front of thousands of viewers, but only has to pay 5 dollars.
Streamers angry: “Don’t ever do that again”
Why is Burger King advertising this way? For Burger King, this is a large advertising space that can be used cost-effectively:
- Twitch streamers are seen by thousands of viewers – Sometimes even over a hundred thousand tune in
- The advertising is cheap – you only pay 5 dollars and reach all viewers
On Twitter, the advertising company Ogilvy once again shows their strategy behind it. They demonstrate that streamers are quite surprised by the donations and that numerous streamers even thank for the donation. It is thus portrayed as something positive. The streamers themselves pixelate them in the process:
This is how the marketing campaign is perceived: Many streamers and viewers are angry about this action. There are several reasons behind it:
- Streamers generate significant income through advertising – Here they offer a large advertising space but are only paid with small amounts of money
- The advertisement comes unsolicited. The streamer knows nothing about the advertisement and may not support the company at all
- Moreover, Burger King is a multimillion-dollar company – Making advertisements this cheaply is really unnecessary
The Australian streamer Ross “RubberNinja” O’Donovan was also affected by the advertising gimmick a few weeks ago. He often has over 1000 viewers watching him at the same time (via Sullygnome). His reaction to the donation, however, was not seen in the advertising video from Ogilvy. Therefore, he shared it on Twitter:
In it, he mocks the advertisement and says that he would much rather go to another burger place and loves the burgers there. On Twitter, he then says: “This marketing is damn awful, don’t ever do this again.”
In a conversation with Kotaku, the streamer reaffirms his statement and confirms that he was not contacted in advance by Burger King or Ogilvy. It happened unsolicited.
Afterwards, he spoke out strongly against this action: “I think they should be held accountable, and this should be a case study for marketing students in the future, that this is absolutely unethical. I’m shocked that someone gave the green light for this.”
Twitch is a huge platform and there are repeated scandals because large companies and even the military use the platform for advertising.
The U.S. Army e-sports organization regularly streams on Twitch, but they were criticized when approached about U.S. war crimes.
