For the last four years, Wendy’s standing brief has been “Make America fall in love with Wendy’s again.” While older generations have fond memories of Wendy’s, 18- to 34-year-olds — fast food’s most frequent consumers — knew the brand as a hamburger restaurant their parents and grandparents liked. We had to grow relevance and distinction among this younger, digitally savvy audience so vital to our future. We needed to build credibility among the next generation of fast food eaters.
We created a celebrity brand, and everyone wanted to partner us with us – even celebrities we didn’t even ask. By making the brand a star, we were able to appear somewhere other than the commercials brand. Wendy’s grew famous for its sassy Twitter, becoming an exemplar of digital culture in the popular zeitgeist. To earn credibility with the next generation of fast-food eaters, Wendy’s became the kind of cheeky, sassy creator and cultural influencer they loved.
- Mainstream entertainment outlets — “Good Morning America,” “The Daily Show,” Netflix’s “Space Force,” “Dave,” to name a few — name-dropped us for cachet among millennial and social-savvy audiences.
- Wendy’s doesn’t buy credibility, we earn it — billions and billions of impressions and millions and millions of followers earned.
- Wendy’s experienced 15 straight quarters of sales growth, becoming the No. 2 fast food hamburger restaurant in America.
