author: Bart Swiatek
Streamers are Mad After Being Used by Marketers
Ogilvy marketing agency prepared for its client - Burger King fast food chain - a campaign which was based on smuggling ads into transmissions of popular streamers. A plug-in created by Streamlabs was used for this purpose, which enables text to be translated into speech and published as short, personalized messages from plegers during the stream.
IN A NUTSHELL:
- Ogilvy marketing agency used a feature of Streamlabs software to smuggle Burger King ads into streams paying next to nothing;
- The company has prepared a mocking video to sum up the campaign;
- Ogilvy's actions are against Streamlabs regulations.
Ogilvy marketing agency (or rather one of its teams, called DAVID Madrid), representing Burger King, decided to trick streamers into advertising their client on their channels for next to no cost. The Twitch donation function was used together with Streamlabs' text-to-speech plugin, which reads short, personalized messages from donors during the stream. To hear your own message, all you have to do is offer a donation of $1. Marketing professionals called the action "The King of Stream" and prepared a mocking video with streamer reactions, which was published on Twitter.
Morally ambiguous actions...
Some streamers are clearly surprised, others react with anger or amusement. However, most of them are not laughing at at all - and it's hard to be surprised by that because advertising on a popular channel, in which they invest a lot of time and money to build and promote, costs much more than $3-5 (that was the amount of donations from the marketers). It is also worth remembering that advertisements and sponsors are the main source of income for many creators in the web. The fact that someone advertizes their brand on their account for a few dollars can be troublesome for them when talking to potential partners. The well-known streamer Cohh Carnage speaks in harsh words against Ogilvy's campaign.
"This is exceptionally low class.
Taking advantage of a system meant to support these streamers, utilizing it for big-name companies that could easily afford to do it properly and then bragging about it?
Predatory marketing. Cool," we read in his tweet.
...and potentially illegal.
What makes the matter even more interesting is the fact that using Streamlabs software like this is against the regulations (below is a translation of the part referring to this issue). Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that the case will eventually land in court - it all depends on what actions Streamlabs will take.
"PROHIBITED CONDUCT [one of the points of T&C - editorial note]: using the site for commercial or promotional purposes, advertising or otherwise solicits funds or is a solicitation for goods or services, displaying an unauthorized commercial advertisement, or accepting payment or anything of value from a third person in exchange for your performing any commercial activity through the unauthorized or impermissible use of the Site or Service on behalf of that person, such as placing commercial content in a product review, placing links to e-commerce sites not authorized by Streamlabs in a product review, placing links to blogs or forums with a commercial purpose, or otherwise attempting to post messages or advertisements with a commercial purpose."