Article

Arby's Halloween meat promo scares up a reaction

Arby's embraced the whole meat trend in an interesting new way on Halloween by offering to add bacon to any order if the customer said the magic words: "Trick or meat!" Reaction on Twitter was interesting.

October 31, 2014 by Brenda Rick Smith — Editor, Networld Media Group

Arby's embraced the whole meat trend in an interesting new way on Halloween by offering to add bacon to any order if the customer said the magic words: "Trick or meat!"

Arby's got the word out about the special deal via social media, using the hashtag #trickormeat on Twitter.

Reaction from the Twitterverse was...interesting.

Some were excited:

so @arbys is giving away FREE BACON if you say #trickormeat when you place your order... brb gonna be in arbys all day

— Baconeers (@baconeers) October 31, 2014

Best Halloween campaign. Possibly ever. #TrickOrMeat @arbys https://t.co/1ozvUjDXdg

— katiedel (@katiedel) October 31, 2014

@Arbys You'd be more popular than the house that gives out full size candy bars! #trickormeat

— Bruce Lange (@LangeB1) October 28, 2014

Some threw shade at the marketing folks behind the concept:

Arby's literally could not have created a worse trending topic with #TrickOrMeat

— Dr. Zoidberg (@PettyPapi) October 31, 2014

WHICHEVER SOCIAL MEDIA PERSON CAME UP WITH #TRICKORMEAT SHOULD BE SENT TO JAIL FOREVER

— Ally Millar (@allyzay) October 31, 2014

Promoted trend by@Arbystoday is#TrickorMeat. Cueing today's social media fiasco in 3, 2, 1...

— Oscar Garza (@garza) October 31, 2014

apparently #trickormeat is an actual hashtag sponsored by Arby's. #lamemarketing

— Jessica Merrell (@jmillermerrell) October 31, 2014

Some noted that the phrase #trickormeat could have alternate meanings:

Somebody gotta tell Arby's that this #TrickOrMeat hashtag can go left REAL QUICK

— Mrs. Forte (@litfangrl) October 31, 2014

Arby's promoting the hashtag #TrickOrMeat sounds like a Halloween porno .... could be into it #dirtymindtoday #sorrytwitter

— Megan Betley (@meganbetley) October 31, 2014

Arby's is dirty#TrickOrMeat

— Frank Rizzo (@UtahFrank) October 31, 2014

#TrickOrMeat sounds like a slang term for an inadvisable activity that would land you on a watch list of some kind.

— Aaron Williams (@dogooderpress) October 31, 2014

I'm finding Arby's use of "#TrickOrMeat" highly inappropriate. There are children here.

— Wings Fangirl (@WingsFangirl) October 30, 2014

The #trickormeat hashtag was home to a lot of decidedly NSFW pics and tweets which may or may not have been related to Arby's campaign. The brand's sponsored tweet snagged 624 retweets and 578 favorites by 5 p.m. on Halloween.

image courtesy of Wikimedia

About Brenda Rick Smith

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Brenda has more than 20 years of experience as a marketing and public relations professional. She invested most of her career telling the story of entrepreneurial non-profit organizations, particularly through social media.

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