Wendy's: "Where's the Beef?"
Last year, Wendy's revived what many describe -- perhaps just when they're hungry -- as the most iconic catchphrase in advertising history: "Where's the beef?" The classic 1984 broadcast campaign in which Clara Peller questioned the burger portions at the "Home of the Big Bun" was re-introduced to promote the overhaul of Wendy's single, double, and triple burgers.
In addition to running the campaign across traditional channels (TV, print, and radio), the campaign was launched in tandem with a promotional microsite -- WheresTheBeef.com -- and extended online via digital banner ads, content integration across Wendy's Facebook and Twitter channels, and QR codes where all campaign messaging finally answered the question and declared, "Here's the beef!"
The most buzzed-about component of the campaign was Wendy's use of Facebook to distribute tens of thousands of "Where's the Beef?" T-shirts. Consumers who "liked" the brand and completed a short series of games and questions within a branded Facebook application were able to reserve their choice of one of five styles of "Where's the Beef?" inspired tees. In addition to quickly amassing an increased Facebook following, the brand successfully reintroduced the classic tagline into pop culture lexicon and reinforced the associated value proposition (bigger burgers) to a new digitally connected audience. Today, Wendy's boasts more than 2.3 million Facebook fans.
