Wendy's: Wendy's

Credits & Description:

Brand WENDY'S
VML Kansas City, USA Entrant Company
VML Kansas City, USA Idea Creation
KETCHUM New York, USA PR
SPARK FOUNDRY New York, USA Media Placement
SIX COURSE Los Angeles, USA Additional Company
Debbi Vandeven VML Global Chief Creative Officer
John Godsey VML North American Chief Creative Officer
Chris Corley VML Executive Creative Director
Colin Belmont VML Senior Account Manager
Pat Piper VML Group Creative Director
Kelly Gartenmayer VML Director, Client Engagement
Zach Mendenhall VML Director, Client Engagement
Christina Miller VML Associate Director, Connections & Social Strategy
Matt Keck VML Associate Director, Conversation Design
Ethan Tedlock VML Associate Creative Director
Samantha Schuster VML Senior Channel Manager
Jeremy Cline VML Analyst, Strategy & Insights
Bret Smith VML Group Planning Director
Jessica Wiggins VML Senior Channel Manager
Emy Hanlon VML Associate Channel Manager
McKailey Carson VML Art Director
Mike Reese Six Course, Inc. Art Director
Jess Elwood VML Associate Creative Director
Tony Marin VML Creative Director
Ant Tull VML Copywriter
Laura Picicci VML Campaign Program Manager
Annie Gerker VML Campaign Program Manager
Archie Davis Six Course Inc. Creative Director
Dorado Quick Six Course Inc. Senior Writer
Carl Loredo Wendy's Vice President, Brand & Advertising
Kurt Kane Wendy's Chief Concept and Marketing Officer
Jimmy Bennett Wendy's Director, Media and Partnerships
Meredith Ulmer Wendy's Social Media Specialist
Kristin Tormey Wendy's Associate Social Media Specialist
Marissa Kandel Ketchum Vice President, Media Specialist
Synopsis
Most brands are skittish about genuinely engaging in real time with their social media audiences, but Wendy’s community management is all-in, loving on fans and playfully roasting haters every day.
We’ve done it by combining a consistent, conversational and sassy voice with topical, relevant humor and playful sarcasm. This formula has allowed Wendy’s social presence and community management team to do some pretty amazing things with its social community.
Over the past year alone, Wendy’s social presence has helped make the brand culturally relevant, turning Wendy’s into its own online influencer to engage in trending topics and pop culture conversations at the internet’s request.
Strategy
An important factor in our brand health scores and general popularity is being rated highly on the metric “Wendy’s is a brand for people like me.” Our voice must be familiar and we need to engage our audience in topics and conversations that are interesting and meaningful to them.
It’s also important that our reach and exposure are driven organically. We want our authentic interactions to strike a chord with consumers so they want to share on our behalf.
Outcome
? 46,693,974 new engagements
? 963,921 new followers
? 119,454 tweets sent
? Official victor of Wingstop rap battle (BuzzFeed)
? We Beefin? charted No. 3 on iTunes Hip-Hop/Rap charts
? 9,095 comments on our Twitter Reddit AMA, making it the most commented organic brand AMA in the past year (without getting hated on)
? 27,000 uses of #NationalRoastDay, turning a made-up holiday into a real one
? Our tribute to the remaining frozen beef on McDonald’s menu resulted in 475 million earned media impressions from 139 placements, including USA Today, Fox News and The Associated Press
? The tribute led to an 80 percent increase in searches for Wendy’s Twitter
? The tribute led to a 113 percent (from 1.5 million to 3.2 million) increase in mentions of Wendy’s year over year
? 300 percent increase in brand asset valuator differentiation contributed to a lift in overall brand equity
Execution
Wendy’s Twitter presence is the result of refining a brand voice over several years, and finding social relevance within it.
Last year we found opportunities and created moments, and even found ourselves brought into moments by others.
Through simple tweets, we created headlines and a reputation for being always on and always ready.
Campaign Description
When you help a tweet about your chicken nuggets become the most retweeted tweet of all time, what do you do next? The answer for @Wendys: everything. You continue to interact with customers in ways previously unheard of. You put an end to competitive beef with witty tweets. You get in rap battles, you do movie reviews, and you find yourself in a place where no one can talk about social media without mentioning Wendy’s.
We stopped searching for moments and started creating them (and even national holidays) for ourselves. With Wendy’s Twitter, the brand became the influencer with a consistent and continuous brand voice that is often imitated. Growing our reputation and follower count has taken Wendy’s from Old-fashioned right into the hearts of the next generation.