webeefin?
By VML / Six Course, Inc., Kansas City, USA
For Wendy's Brand Wendy's Community Management
Winner in category Advertising
In subcategory Radio
Audio 1
Project Description
BACKGROUND
Months before the release, Wendy’s engaged in a rap battle with a competitor on Twitter. Based on a BuzzFeed poll and reactions, fans believed Wendy’s came out on top, and began requesting and anticipating a mixtape from the brand. So we answered them with webeefin?, a five-track EP with some themes from the rap battle and our everyday Tweets. From a briefing and an objective standpoint, the project’s goal was to bring the Wendy’s social voice to life through music in a way that would resonate with hip-hop fans.
CREATIVE IDEA
Wendy's Twitter is known for its sassy tone, and we wanted to see if that voice would translate beyond Twitter. We produced a mixtape launching our Twitter handle (@Wendys) as an official recording artist. Due to a recent rap battle and our exchanges with competitors, we felt hip-hop was the best genre to express our voice it's only natural for fresh beef to translate seamlessly into the world of rap beef. In addition to the competitive themes, Wendy's brand equities such as the Baconator and even recent campaign success stories like #NuggsForCarter appeared in song lyrics.
Months before the release, Wendy’s engaged in a rap battle with a competitor on Twitter. Based on a BuzzFeed poll and reactions, fans believed Wendy’s came out on top, and began requesting and anticipating a mixtape from the brand. So we answered them with webeefin?, a five-track EP with some themes from the rap battle and our everyday Tweets. From a briefing and an objective standpoint, the project’s goal was to bring the Wendy’s social voice to life through music in a way that would resonate with hip-hop fans.
CREATIVE IDEA
Wendy's Twitter is known for its sassy tone, and we wanted to see if that voice would translate beyond Twitter. We produced a mixtape launching our Twitter handle (@Wendys) as an official recording artist. Due to a recent rap battle and our exchanges with competitors, we felt hip-hop was the best genre to express our voice it's only natural for fresh beef to translate seamlessly into the world of rap beef. In addition to the competitive themes, Wendy's brand equities such as the Baconator and even recent campaign success stories like #NuggsForCarter appeared in song lyrics.
Agency Solution
STRATEGY
Our social strategy is to stay authentic and organic in our conversations, so we launched Wendy's mixtape in a way that was authentic to the hip-hop community. We took notes from up-and-coming rap artists and replicated that in our mixtape strategy.
Wendy's garnered organic chatter that rivals large-scale campaigns, all because loyal fans and admiring celebrities enjoyed the content to the point of sharing, reviewing and creating original content that featured webeefin?. Our fans don't typically appreciate advertising, so we created a nonintrusive culture phenomenon that relates to our social voice.
EXECUTION
The EP launched organically at midnight on March 25 and was tweeted by Wendy's that morning. The EP was loaded into more than 20 streaming music services, but no media was placed to push customers to stream or download the music. Within 48 hours, webeefin? had received more than 500 million earned media impressions and had already skyrocketed to No. 3 on iTunes Hip-Hop charts. Fans took to the internet to celebrate the mixtape by posting reviews, filming original content talking about the music even filming themselves blaring the music while at the drive-thrus of the competitors mentioned in the song lyrics. For fans who wanted a deeper dive into the lyrics, we featured lyrical annotations on Genius.
Our social strategy is to stay authentic and organic in our conversations, so we launched Wendy's mixtape in a way that was authentic to the hip-hop community. We took notes from up-and-coming rap artists and replicated that in our mixtape strategy.
Wendy's garnered organic chatter that rivals large-scale campaigns, all because loyal fans and admiring celebrities enjoyed the content to the point of sharing, reviewing and creating original content that featured webeefin?. Our fans don't typically appreciate advertising, so we created a nonintrusive culture phenomenon that relates to our social voice.
EXECUTION
The EP launched organically at midnight on March 25 and was tweeted by Wendy's that morning. The EP was loaded into more than 20 streaming music services, but no media was placed to push customers to stream or download the music. Within 48 hours, webeefin? had received more than 500 million earned media impressions and had already skyrocketed to No. 3 on iTunes Hip-Hop charts. Fans took to the internet to celebrate the mixtape by posting reviews, filming original content talking about the music even filming themselves blaring the music while at the drive-thrus of the competitors mentioned in the song lyrics. For fans who wanted a deeper dive into the lyrics, we featured lyrical annotations on Genius.