While fast food giants such as McDonald’s and Burger King have struggled to find their way in the social media landscape, Wendy’s seems to have found a winning ingredient: absurdity.
Burger King chose an unfortunate Twitter hashtag in a recent attempt to publicize its new lower-fat Satisfries. While the crinkle-cut fries were receiving mixed buzz during urban launches, management decided to implement #WTFF , as in “What the French Frie?” “#WTFF” however, is already a hash tag meaning “What the F*****g F**k.”
McDonald’s campaign, while not as critically flawed, also got rude responses to Twitter campaigns instead of customer love. So why is Wendy’s winning?
Wendy’s has scored a Facebook and Twitter hit with a campaign that leverages the one factor that reliably gets social media users to laugh with you rather than at you: Unbelievably dumb stuff that’s blow-milk-out-your-nose funny.
For the roll-out of its new Pretzel Pub Chicken sandwich, Wendy’s has created a campaign so hilariously bad that it simply must be talked about. In #PretzelLoveStories, actors in a nonsensical, telenovela-style soap opera recite diners’ tweets about the new menu item. The first video featured a love triangle at the altar, as two men vie for the bride’s hand.
Making a marketing campaign ludicrous seems to help protect it from being a target of rude comments on Twitter. The obvious lure to these user-generated campaigns for Twitter users to share about the product is to see if you can get your own tweet into one of these videos.
New Wave Reporting 