Wendy's: Twitter Beef

Wendy’s has always used fresh beef, yet 70 percent of consumers didn’t believe it. So when a Twitter follower accused Wendy’s of lying about its burgers, the brand responded so cleverly that Ketchum and VML turned “Twitter Beef” into headline news. Then, when McDonald’s announced it would use fresh beef in Quarter Pounders by 2018, Wendy’s epic clapback pointed out that most of McDonald’s burgers would still contain frozen beef. These two moments generated a combined 2.4 billion earned media impressions and delivered a 1650% increase in conversation about Wendy’s. Ninety-five percent of resulting earned media stories proclaimed Wendy’s fresh beef message as its #1 point of competitive differentiation.