Brand diversion Wendy's style - marketing secrets blog

…or how much is the world's most shared Tweet worth? Carter Wilkerson already knows the answer: definitely 1 year of Wendy’s food…

Until 2017, Carter Wilkerson lived the life of an average American high school student, but that changed in an instant after he posted a bold tweet. He asked the Wendy’s fast-food chain how many retweets (shares) it would take for him to get free nuggets for a year.

Spoiler #1 – the guy never reached that number of shares
Spoiler #2 – Wendy’s kept its promise and he could eat there for free for a year.

Wendy’s raises the bar high

Wendy’s, which had a store in our country for a few years at Oktogon and is famous for its square hamburger patties, communicates on Twitter in a rather cheeky, rockstar, rebel style fitting for small brands. This is what our hero appealed to when he posed his question. The boy later said he played it safe: he knew he could expect something shocking from Wendy’s. He was not disappointed…

Wendy’s responded with a hypersonically steep number: He needs to reach 18 million. This number is roughly in the impossible category. The previous record holder, America’s number one talk show host, Ellen DeGeneres, had boasted 3.2 million shares with a photo taken at the Oscars featuring Hollywood celebrities. Fortunately, our hero was taken under the wings of the power of the internet (apologies to literature files for the obvious mixed metaphor), as well as the digital average person of our time, who was touched by the archetype of the smallest boy trying his luck. The record Tweet count came together in just over a month, with the help of private individuals, stars, and large corporations.

The world’s most shared Twitter message

Apple Music, Google, Microsoft, T-Mobile’s CEO, Aaron Paul, the star of Breaking Bad, all urged their followers to support Carter. The hype grew so large that the Nevada boy received an invitation to Ellen’s TV show. Ellen humorously threatened him, asking him to be so kind as to promote her Oscar gala picture alongside his own tweet in exchange for gifts. The full video is only 5 minutes, it’s worth watching.

As determined as Ellen seems, it’s astonishing that America’s most popular TV host is practically begging an unknown 16-year-old boy to push the promo bike a little…
The story is as short as a tweet and ends with a happy ending, despite Carter never getting close to his goal.

In the end, Carter collected more than 3 million retweets instead of 18 million. However, that was enough for him to have the world’s most shared Twitter message, yes, ultimately surpassing Ellen as well.
The case became sensational in the United States, Carter received continuous interview requests, the news was picked up by news portals and broadcasts, so everyone involved in the story received millions of dollars worth of free press coverage. As a result, Wendy’s happily granted the boy the 1-year Nuggets voucher (in English slang simply Nuggs, hence the campaign slogan: a Man needs his Nuggs). Additionally, they donated $100,000 to a charity.

At the end of our story, everyone came out ahead

Carter received the coveted Nuggets supply, and in addition, gained national recognition. He gave numerous interviews and, according to his own account, the biggest deal was that he got into In Katy Perry's music video
He said that initially he had 147 followers, but at the time of the interview, he already had 60,000. This has since increased to 75,000, and even at the time of writing the article, it had grown by one more 🙂
Wendy’s pulled off a strong Tweet into a national media campaign, from which it emerged positively. There is no data on it, but this could have positively affected not only its image but also the sales of Nuggets without any investment (well, except for the kickass copywriter).
The $100,000 donation, at today’s exchange rate, may have seemed like a lot, but practically, he got a national campaign for his money, moreover in organic reach, not paid advertisements. Brand awareness surely increased with this as well.
Ellen DeGeneres may seem like a loser in the short term for being dethroned from the throne of most shared, but her popularity among young people may have increased, and she received a free organic media campaign.
Twitter has become more popular than ever, as shown by the significance of Carter's Tweet, which even made it into the company's quarterly stock report.

After the Tweet hurricane, Carter withdrew from the public eye and, with a reality sense that belied his age, stated a few years later that he enjoyed basking in the spotlight, but now he is happy to have his ordinary life back. He fondly thinks of the moment when he will have stories to tell his children. He is still recognized on the street every couple of weeks, and in Wendy’s restaurants, he is considered a family member since then 🙂

One question has been bothering me regarding the Tweet success story. How present are Hungarian brands on Twitter? Who launched what campaign, and with what results?
To find out the answer, we initiated a mini-research and reached out to several large companies with our questions.

As soon as I receive answers, I will continue the article…