How Wendy's played a video game to drive a brand metric

Context

Wendy's wanted to reach gamers through the biggest game in the world - Fortnite, a cultural phenomenon. Brands are either left tweeting about it from the sidelines or paying big bucks for in-game sponsorships.

So when Fortnite announced a new game mode called Food Fight, pitting Team Burger against Team Pizza, Wendy's found an organic way in.

Objectives

• Increase awareness that Wendy's doesn't use frozen beef
• Drive excess Share of Voice by hijacking a cultural phenomenon

Campaign

Wendy's created a digital avatar in the hit multiplayer battle royale videogame that looked suspiciously like Wendy’s own namesake. This red-hooded character showed up in the game and promptly started to ignore all of the other players, typically the main targets.

Instead, she entered burger joints inside the game’s unpopulated cityscape, located the freezers and destroyed them. Wendy’s, after all, never uses frozen beef. This destructive escapade was streamed on Twitch where millions could watch, and the community joined in the rampage with glee. Eventually, the game’s developers swapped out all of the freezers with facilities for fresh burgers.

Results

Overall, the campaign generated a 119% increase in social media mentions and 1.5 million minutes of Twitch viewing as the avatar destroyed a total of 752 freezers in the game.

One of the Cannes Lions jury said,

“There’s so much to love about this—a brand jumping into a new form of social that Fortnite represents. There’s the mischievousness of this, the nimbleness of going there and figuring out the Little Red Riding Hood character looks just like their main character.”