I'll gladly get frosty with this Wendy's posse

Wendy's has a new Frosty flavor absurdly named the Coffee Toffee Twisted Frosty, and has formed a parody boy band called the Frosty Posse to market it. They had an excellent ad buy for the campaign on American Idol's Web site (rather goes with the theme) that caught my eye the moment I landed on it. Head over to the microsite to get a BOGO coupon, and scroll way down to the bottom to hear the tune redone as a country song and a rap song. Don't miss the meta "making of" video, either. As parody pop posses go, they manage to be neither as edgy as the SNL boys (NSFW), as witty as Flight of the Conchords, nor as catchy as the FreeCreditReport guys. But as a lover of all things faux boy band, I still like it. I also want to "get frosty" with the one named Brandon. Hey, we all have our weaknesses.

—Posted by Rebecca Cullers

Published on May 21, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (11)
Filed under Cullers, Food and drink, Restaurants, Wendy's

Wendy's specializing in meat-eating lettuce

Behold the greatest fast-food viral video of all time! Or at least, the best one to star a carnivorous head of lettuce. Created for Wendy's by Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners, it's called "Crazy Lettuce." The lettuce gets crazy about 18 seconds in. As the guy in the clip says: "Wait for it." I wasted 60 seconds of my life watching the video twice. Which is nothing compared to the years I've shaved off my existence pounding down Baconator sandwiches. I regret nothing. If my Baconator comes with lettuce, tomatoes or anything vaguely healthy, I don't take that stuff off. I send the whole thing back and demand another one. Sure, they probably spit in it, but that's still better than eating lettuce and tomatoes. Full disclosure: I watched the video three times, and yes, then I went out to Wendy's. The grease seeped into my clothes, and now I'll smell like burgers all day. This must be what it's like in heaven.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Published on September 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)
Filed under Gianatasio, Kirshenbaum Bond, Web video, Wendy's

Wendy’s picks consumer-generated burger

As AdFreak’s official Wendy’s reporter, I’m charged with informing you all that the chain has, at long last, decided what its new, customer-built burger is going to be: the Philly Style Hoagie Burger, created by screenwriter Ian Van Camp (shown here), will hit the nation’s arteries next year. (The Web site’s arteries are already clogged, given how slow it loads.) The sandwich is large, graceless and obnoxious, in true Philadelphia fashion, featuring ham and genoa salami piled on top of two beef patties, with a generous drizzle of Italian dressing for good measure. Frankly, I can’t decide if it’s a double cheeseburger or a double entendre, given how much meat he’s cramming between those buns. Maybe once Van Camp finishes basking in the adulation of the “burger community” (a collection of people who love burgers and have failed to build their identities around anything else) he can sort it out for us.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Published on November 19, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (4)
Filed under Kiefaber, Wendy's

Burgers for life, with only a little downside

Man, Wendy’s has a lot of Web sites up these days. This time we’re looking at Hot Juicy Burger, a “social networking” affair in which people broadcast their need for a hot, juicy burger using a customizable red-wigged avatar. Other features include an irritating clip of dramatic music that never stops, and the chance to win free Wendy’s hamburgers for life. The free grub not easy to secure. “There are different point values assigned to a variety of tasks, such as getting as many people as possible to click on your avatar, posting your avatar on your Facebook page, logging on more frequently, etc.” This contest, like many others before it, turns out to be less about having customers express their feelings about the brand and more about rewarding them for allowing themselves to be annoyed. And I thought we were still supposed to be singing about their burgers, anyway. Could you keep it to one dim idea at a time?

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Published on October 23, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (6)
Filed under Kiefaber, Wendy's

In squeaky voice, Wendy’s defends new ad

Adverganza has posted an item today about this new Wendy’s spot, in which office workers take hits from a helium canister, then float to the ceiling, bloated and complaining in their high-pitched helium voices. (“Filling up with just anything? That’s wrong,” explains the voiceover.) Critics say the ad sends the wrong message to kids about inhalants, as opposed to your typical Wendy’s ad, which simply sends the wrong message to kids about nutrition. “Kids get the idea that it’s OK to put a gas in your body,” says a rep at the National Inhalant Prevention Council. While not explicitly defending the practice of giving people gas, Wendy’s nonetheless stands by the commercial, saying it clearly shows “a situation that is not real, because people don’t float on the ceiling.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on September 20, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (12)
Filed under Wendy's

In love with bacon and not afraid to admit it

Oh, Wendy’s. Have you ever seen anything you didn’t want to top with bacon? Now they’ve done away with the pretense and created the Baconator, a burger that has six strips of bacon stretched across its typical leathery slab of nondescript meat. They even have a Web site for it, This Is My Burger, where you can (seriously) enter a songwriting contest using cheeseburger-related samples. Whoever best serenades the Baconator wins $5,000, studio time to prepare the master work for the masses, and guaranteed radio play. Songs can be mixed on the Web site and will be judged on artistic credibility (seriously), originality and whether or not they “sizzle.” Hey, if wizard rock can exist, why not cholesterock? It could sweep the nation like rampant obesity.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Published on August 24, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (3)
Filed under Kiefaber, Wendy's

Redheads swarm Wendy’s to protest logo

We gave Wendy’s a little heat last month for that spot with the pigtailed guy kicking trees, but apparently the burger chain has riled more than just us. Just as Wendy’s is turning its iconic red pigtails into an ongoing marketing tool (a new spot was up on YouTube briefly, but is now gone), redheads are turning out en masse to protest the logo. “We love Wendy’s,” a protest organizer said before demonstrating outside a Wendy’s in New York earlier this month. “We just wish they would have an accurate depiction of redheads. How many of us today wear our hair in pigtails? None, actually.” OK, so the protest isn’t real. It’s just the latest prank by Improv Everywhere, the folks who staged a classic invasion of Best Buy last year. Still, it’s considerably funnier buzz than Wendy’s has intentionally stirred up lately. Maybe they should give a few hundred pigtail wigs to the Improv Everywhere folks and see what happens. Once the Wendy’s execs are done wetting themselves, it might win them a Cannes Lion. UPDATE: Here’s the new pigtail spot, courtesy of Adrants.

—Posted by David Griner

Published on July 24, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Filed under Griner, Wendy's

Where’s a lumberjack when you need one?

So, I’ve been watching this Wendy’s tree-kicking spot for a few weeks now, and I have to say I’m not a fan. In fact, it kinda annoys the hell out of me. At first I couldn’t quite figure out why. It doesn’t play off sexist stereotypes or insult my intelligence. So, why does it irritate me so much? After some hefty research, I decided: 1) It’s a looooong 60 seconds. 2) It has this wannabe-Crispin vibe that just falls flat. (It’s actually Saatchi & Saatchi.) 3) The casting spec seems like it just said “Will Ferrell.” 4) One of my favorite fast-food ads already takes place in the woods, and it’s a mere 15 seconds. And that one actually is Crispin.

—Posted by David Griner

Published on June 15, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
Filed under Griner, Wendy's

Will an air marshall please handle Mr. 14B?

Is there a more nonsensical TV commercial on the air right now than the Wendy’s spot with the guy in the middle seat on the plane? Single guys who bring smelly fast food onto airplanes are not, as a rule, considered prime catches by the females. And yet Mr. 14B gets the royal treatment from his row-mates for bringing a sloppy burger on board. Then we get some product shots and a female voiceover that says, “You know how good the middle can be”—setting up a metaphor in which the ladies in 14A and 14C play the part of two “hot and juicy, fresh, never frozen, beef patties.” All the while, inexplicably, the Violent Femmes song “Blister in the Sun” plays in the background. Dave Thomas must be rolling in his grave.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on May 2, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBack (0)
Filed under Wendy's

Go to Wendy’s tonight, you scavengers

It’s hard to argue with this Wendy’s headline. For many species, it is good to be nocturnal, as it reduces the risk of oneself or one’s offspring being eaten by predators. For Wendy’s human customers, being nocturnal has its own benefits—it gives you an excuse to sleep all day and eat all the crispy chicken sandwiches you want at night, as they float temptingly in the night sky. Comparing your customer to the raccoon, a well-known scavenger, may be a questionable ploy, though raccoons certainly wouldn’t pass up a dumpster full of Wendy’s leftovers at 4 a.m. Having the one raccoon point and drool is a nice touch also. Photo by skonen_blades.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on April 17, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Filed under Wendy's

Yes, Clara Peller used to live in my house

Does anyone know how to get on the National Historic Registry, or at least a registry of marginally historic places that only ad geeks would care about? I’ve got a doozy. According to my neighbor, who has lived on my block for nearly 40 years, Clara Peller, the “Where’s the beef?” lady, used to live in my house, which is otherwise known as AdFreak’s Roscoe Village outpost. Yeah, I didn’t believe it either. But according to my neighbor (and no, I have not second-sourced this), Peller called the three-story row house home for a few years before finding fame and fortune in the ’80s with Wendy’s. My neighbor said she walked Peller’s dogs from time to time but unfortunately never discussed the finer points of fast food with her. (Peller died in 1987.) For those of you Clara fans looking for a little history on your visit to Chicago, stop on by. I’ll make a square hamburger for you. But I’m not giving out the address, for fear of my lawn getting trampled. And, of course, the paparazzi.

—Posted by Aaron Baar

Published on December 20, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Filed under Wendy's

No hamburger left behind on Bush trip

So, we already knew Bill Clinton’s fast-food company of choice. It seems that George W. Bush, who has long shied away from anything even remotely connected to the previous administration, has his own preference. According to local reports, the president was scheduled to drop by Wendy’s headquarters in Dublin, Ohio, today. Apparently bolstered by reports that a high-fat diet does not cause cancer, Bush is using the event to talk about healthcare. Not sure if G.W. will be stopping for a double cheeseburger and Biggie fries, but we’re sure it beats freshly killed quail any day.

—Posted by Aaron Baar

Published on February 15, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Filed under Wendy's

Ronald McDonald robs Wendy’s

So it looks like Ronald McDonald has been arrested for burglarizing a Wendy’s restaurant. No, really. Well, sort of.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on November 28, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Filed under Wendy's

Wendy's says it's good to be square

It’s not often that we click on an ad just because it looks intriguing, so we have to hand it to Wendy’s for sucking us into its little animated short this morning. The banner that led us to it looked as though it might be promoting Zoloft (see Zoloft face above), since its central visual was one of those wistful black-and-white faces on a cheery red background. But the movie it links to at goodtobesquare.com is more like an homage to what happens when the anti-depressant treatment finally kicks in—and it never mentions Wendy's. It stars a little square emoticon being followed slavishly by a bunch of chirpy circles to the 1970 tune “Ooh Child” by The Five Stairsteps, the feel-good hit of the entire twentieth century. (See Wendy's emoticons at left.) According to this story, the TV version of the campaign will segue into some discussion of why square hamburger patties are better. One other note: isn’t it curious that the emoticons have legs, but no arms, and therefore, no fingers?

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on May 27, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (32)
Filed under Wendy's

Put your fingers around a free Wendy's Frosty

Finger-free Frostys all ‘round! Wendy’s restaurants nationwide will extend a—hand—to consumers this weekend with a special Junior Frosty giveaway, Friday through Sunday. The giveaway of 14 million of the slushy ice-cream drinks is a move to draw customers back to the embattled burger chain, which saw its reputation dragged through the mud after a Las Vegas woman went to a San Jose, Calif, restaurant and said she was served a bowl of chili with part of a finger in it—and now has been charged in connection with planting the finger. The free Frosty weekend was already a big hit in the San Francisco Bay Area a few weeks ago—the chain gave out 100,000 Frostys.

—Posted by Celeste Ward

Published on May 12, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Filed under Wendy's

A footnote (fingernote?) on the Wendy's case

Even though it was starting to become obvious that this whole thing about the fingertip in the Wendy’s chili was a hoax, it was lotsa fun to read that the alleged victim, one Anna Alaya, was arrested for making the story up late last week, on the very same day that Wendy’s had a lengthy, sympathetic portrayal of how it was handling the crisis in The New York Times. Now we’re hoping that Wendy’s next step is to sue the bejesus out of Ms. Ayala, who apparently “has a history of bringing claims against big corporations.”

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on April 25, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Filed under Wendy's

Wendy's chili: finger-splicin' good!

Check the Burger King—has he got all ten fingers? This Wendy’s chili incident in San Jose in which a woman found a severed fingertip in her food is a vile public relations nightmare. What's worse—it is still “unsolved,” and virtually an episode of Forensic Files just waiting to be produced, as evidenced by this USA Today story investigating the origin of the, uh, tip. Few real events ever have people wishing they were urban legends, but this one qualifies. If only it were as fake as the exploding Pop Rocks or the batter-fried rat detailed on www.snopes.com. Meanwhile, if you crave Wendy's chili but are afraid what it might contain, we'll point you to this recipe for Wendy's-style chili. At least if you make it yourself, assembling the ingredients is completely in your control.

—Posted by Celeste Ward

Published on March 31, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (2)
Filed under Wendy's