Wendy's has launched its latest ad campaign with the tagline "You know when it's real," the first effort of its new creative agency Kaplan Thaler.
The company's Web site features takes on the "Real" theme with a video that proclaims the company's Declaration of Real with scenes that compare real things to fake, such as a toy dog and a barking one and its made-from-fresh beef patties to frozen ones. Another link brings up real-time tweets from Twitter users posting messages about being hungry.
The site also promotes Wendy's latest burger: The new Bacon Deluxe features a fresh-cooked beef patty, melted American cheese, leaf lettuce, a slice of beefsteak tomato and four thick, crispy strips of Applewood Smoked Bacon, on a Kaiser bun.
The campaign is intended to revive the brand and stress its freshness and quality, according to a story in The Wall Street Journal.
From The Wall Street Journal:
Wendy's says the new campaign, its biggest in years, includes 25 TV and 23 radio spots, 16 billboard ads and a slew of online promotions. The chain plans to spend about $75 million on the effort in the fourth quarter, according to people familiar with the matter. Wendy's, part of Wendy's/Arby's Group, of Atlanta, will use the slogan "You know when it's real" to tout the freshness of its food and poke fun at competitors. ...Wendy's—the country's third-largest burger chain by sales, after McDonald's and Burger King—has struggled to define itself since the death in 2002 of Dave Thomas, its founder and former pitchman."The brand is not where it needs to be," says Ken Calwell, Wendy's chief marketing officer."It's still unclear to me what Wendy's stands for," says Ron Paul, president of Technomic, a restaurant consulting firm in Chicago. ...Wendy's also says it will spend less money promoting its value menu over the next few months. Food-industry experts say that dialing back on value advertising is risky amid the recession, and that fast-food operators need to tout both value and quality. But straddling the line between the two messages is difficult and expensive, and could give McDonald's a leg up because of its heavier ad spending.
