“Find new friends”
– Wendy’s
Wendy’s is turning up the heat, but this time grilling more than meat patties.
Amongst a sea of kid-friendly, feel good online advertisements, Wendy’s burger chain has taken to a new method of increasing online engagement: publicly roasting their competitors and devoted customers.
It’s a trend that was made popular by YouTubers who would dedicate videos to taking aim at and showing no mercy towards anyone who dared provoke the home-video stars.
But if the motive is disagreeable, the response isn’t. People. F**king. Love. It.
Websites dedicated. Accounts created. Provocative tweets carefully curated and sent the way of the franchise. All in the hope of being on the receiving end of an icy milkshake-temperature personal attack.
The chain that has long been represented by a rosy-cheeked little girl grinning with glee has now given the world a twitter-bird shaped peep-hole into the personalities and hilarity of the people behind the franchise.
Insights and engagement has increased dramatically with the trend coming full circle: multi-million subscriber YouTube channels have dedicated videos to reviewing (and pissing themselves) at the witty responses coming from what we know as the ice-cream loving red-headed girl.
What’s more, Wendy’s has carved out an untouchable space within the twittersphere. Any competing franchise who tries to initiate or even thwart a roast is inundated with drollery and is left to limp away while the 300+ million twitter users laugh (and probably go to buy a Wendy’s shake).
If Wendy’s has shown us one thing, it’s that we love a villain.
But at what stage of playing the online antagonist do you just become unlikeable?
…to be explored in next week’s post.
An Amateur's Perspective 