London International Awards
2022 Winners and Finalists
Bronze
Social Media & Influencers
Social Media Post
Entrant: | VMLY&R, Kansas City |
Brand: | Wendy's |
Title: | "Meat Tweet" |
Name of Social Influencer: | Wendy's |
Corporate Name of Client (if applicable): | Wendy's |
Chief Marketing Officer: | Carl Loredo |
Vice President, Media and Social, Wendy's: | Jimmy Bennett |
Client Director, Strategic Brand Communications: | Frank Vamos |
Client Manager, Social Media & Gaming: | Kristin Tormey |
PR Company: | Ketchum, Chicago |
Agency: | VMLY&R, Kansas City |
Global Chief Creative Officer: | Debbi Vandeven |
Chief Creative Officer, NA: | John Godsey |
Chief Creative Officer: | Noel Cottrell |
Executive Creative Director: | McKay Hathaway |
Creative Directors: | Matt Keck/Conor Clarke/Eamon Conway/Ryan Barkhuizen |
Copywriter: | Emily Friedman |
Agency Motion Designer: | Dominic Lamonica |
Agency Group Director Integrated Production: | Steve Stone |
Agency Director of Post Production, NA: | Casey Steele |
Agency Post Producer: | Grace Rehorn |
Agency Editor: | Morgan Jefferson |
Agency Connections Supervisor: | Jessica Wiggins Unverferth |
Agency Senior Connections Managers: | Emmy Hanlon/Lawrence Brown |
Agency Senior Campaign Program Manager: | Laura Picicci Meyer |
Agency Managing Director Strategy & Insights: | Bret Smith |
Agency Manager, Innovation & Data: | Jeremy Cline |
Agency Chief Client Officer, NA: | Jennifer McDonald |
Agency Managing Director Client Engagement: | Kelly Gartenmayer |
Agency Associate Director Client Engagement: | Colin Belmont |
Description:
While primarily focused on our core differentiator of fresh, never frozen beef and roasting the competition's use of the inferior frozen beef, Wendy’s social media takes the brand to places no other brand could. We’ve developed a cult following, established #NationalRoastDay as a national holiday and transformed Wendy’s into material for pop culture.
We use social media to vault to the top of consumers’ minds in more unique and memorable ways than our competition, which matters when mealtime decisions are impulse decisions, and the top-of-mind brand is the one that gets the visit.
Therefore, our challenge is to vault to the top of consumers' minds in more unique and memorable ways than our competition.
When Facebook — the largest social media company in the world, home to more than 2.89 billion users — announced it was changing its company name from Facebook to Meta, there were billions of opinions.
But opinions don’t become newsworthy until an expert or authority weighs in. And as the resident authority on opinions via social media roasting, Wendy’s found a way in on the announcement.
Social media has transformed news into content and content into news. Platforms such as Twitter can turn users' tweets, whether from world leaders, celebrities, or everyday people, into headline news either from world leaders, celebrities, or everyday ordinary people.
When the announcement of Facebook’s name change began to make cultural waves and generate billions of opinions and comments, we knew we could join the conversation by using Wendy’s ability and proven history of turning tweets into headlines.
How could we use the magnitude of the real-time moment to make it about Wendy’s?
After Facebook announced its name change to Meta, we announced we were changing our name too. Tweeting just four words — “changing name to meat.” — Wendy's turned the biggest social network's biggest announcement into a headline for Wendy’s core product: MEAT.
Everyone began talking about Meta and Wendy’s. Mentions of Wendy’s across social media increased by more than 625% as our tweet generated more than 17 million organic Twitter impressions. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey even shared it.
Media shared it and generated 118 million earned media impressions. However, the truest form of validation came when Mark Zuckerberg himself declared that Wendy’s reaction to the name change was the best reaction.
Therefore, we were able to turn the biggest social network’s biggest announcement into a headline for Wendy’s core product: meat.