Seeking to leverage the latest technology in its advertising, McDonald’s in Brazil submitted a simple question to ChatGPT: “What is the most iconic burger in the world?” The chatbot quickly produced the response that the burger chain wanted, noting that the Big Mac emerged as the most globally recognized name in fast-food hamburgers. So pleased were the marketing professionals with this response, they added the response to billboards that appeared in bus stops and other public places. But the campaign prompted Burger King to wonder what would happen if they phrased the request differently. Entering the ChatGPT thread about the most iconic burger, Burger Kind posed the query: “And which is the biggest?” Here, the AI identified Burger King’s Whopper in top place. With this AI-provided ammunition, Burger King placed its own advertising next to each of the McDonald’s billboards, using similar colors and font. Thus, the McDonald’s claim to iconicity is immediately countered by Burger King’s claim to size. ChatGPT is designed and claims to be objective, of course, but as this simple competition shows, advertisers could make widely divergent claims of superiority on the basis of its responses.

Sources: Amy Houston, “Ad of the Day: Burger King Responds to McDonald’s ChatGPT Taunt,” The Drum, June 8, 2023; Beatrice Nolan, “Burger King Claps Back at McDonald’s with its Own ChatGPT Ad After the Chatbot Calls the Big Mac the Most Iconic Burger,” Business Insider, June 9, 2023