Burger King Upsets Livestreamers with Non-Consensual Ads

Fast food royalty has struck the ire of the commonfolk after invading video game livestreams. Popular food chain Burger King developed controversy after participating in an ad campaign that takes advantage of Twitch streamer donation settings.

On the morning of August 18, ad agency Ogilvy posted a video they had produced of a viral marketing scheme they did for Burger King. The ad team used an automated system to donate money in amounts no larger than $5 to random streamers. These donations came with messages promoting the fast food franchise. As a result, these promotions were often displayed on screen to the livestream viewers, often with a text to speech voice reading the message.

The video highlights the confusion and concern from various streamers they did this to, including clips of streamers asking if they intend to do a proper sponsorship instead of using the donation system.

To speak frankly: people are pretty pissed off by this. The donation culture within live streaming is intended as a way for viewers to express support for their favorite broadcasters. Displaying the messages they leave grants themes a sense of recognition for their contribution. It's not intended as a cheap and easy platform for advertising by major corporations.

"This is exceptionally low class," "this is absolutely unprofessional and unethical," and "I've since perma-banned King of Stream and Burger King," are some statements that live streamers have made about the stunt (gathered by Kotaku).

Streamers involved in the stunt have stated that neither Ogilvy nor Burger King reached out to them about being involved in the campaign before or after making the donation. Many have pointed out that this idea breaks the Twitch terms of service. Some are even calling for an investigation by the FTC.
I'm not going to act like I was a frequent Burger King customer, but their ad campaign was tremendously disrespectful to the live streaming community. So it certainly doesn't encourage me to go out of my way for them.