Burger King's ad agency frustrates Twitch streamers with "predatory" stunt
Oglivy uses text-to-speech chat bots to deliver ads during livestreams for $5 or less
A New York ad agency has come under fire for using Twitch donations to deliver ads during broadcasts for trivial sums.
One of the team's at Ogilvy sent donations of $5 or less to streamers that use a text-to-speech bot to deliver viewer messages, Kotaku reports.
While this setup is usually used by gamers who want to deliver a personal message for a small fee, the agency used it to promote various Burger King offers, with the slogans automatically read out over the livestream.
The agency compiled a video of various streamer reactions and shared via Twitter. Each streamer displays confusion or frustration, with one stating: "Listen, are you gonna sponsor me or not?"
The streamers do later thank Burger King for the $5 donations. But several others have since expressed frustration over the misuse of the donation system.
Streamer Ben 'CohhCarnage' Cassell tweeted to Ogilvy: "This is exceptionally low class. Taking advantage of a system meant to support those streamers, utilising it for big-name companies that could easily afford to do it properly and then bragging about it? Predatory marketing. Cool."
Twitch partner AnneMunition says this happens in her streams on an almost monthly basis.
"I really despise when companies take advantage of my live content in order to push their ads without clearing it with me first or offering what I should be paid for the marketing -- which is more than $5, I'm pretty sure."