Wendy’s Twitter Burn Shows Just How Spicy They Can Be

Clayton Carroll

5 min readJan 31, 2017

This week’s digital marketing success story is about Wendy’s extra spicy Twitter account (sorry, I had to).

What We Learn From Wendy’s: How social media can transform a brand into something beyond its products.

Example: Their savage Twitter exchange with someone that picked the wrong day to “tough talk”:

Part 1 — The Setup

Part 2 — The Sting

At this point, you have just jumped out of the plane and there is no way to fall up. Even the great ones have admitted defeat. If you are Thuggy-D, just ignore Wendy’s last Tweet, pull your parachute and live to troll another day.

However, Thuggy-D was never one to play it safe. It’s a bold strategy, let’s see if it pays off for him.

Part 3 — The Death Blow

All those McGriddles betrayed Thuggy-D.

He ended up deleting his Twitter account, then brought it back a short time later with a different picture.

Why Was Wendy’s Twitter Burn Effective?

It was hilarious!

My face after after reading those Tweets.

You can’t help but laugh because companies like Wendy’s take untold amounts of social media abuse every day. For once, the good guys got a win and took out a Twitter troll.

Also, it’s so out of the ordinary for a company on social media to respond with something other than:

“We’re so sorry to hear that! Send us a direct message and we’ll help you out.”

So much so that the final Tweet went viral on Twitter with almost 10,000 retweets and over 26,000 likes, people were sharing the story on Facebook (how I found out about it) and practically every news outlet couldn’t wait to serve up their own version of the story — with an order of double entendres and side of puns.

CNN even did a dramatic reenactment of the Twitter exchange:

However, this is way bigger than just some viral Tweets and news coverage.

The Bigger Picture: Wendy’s Became Much More Than Another Fast Food Joint on Twitter

This Twitter exchange was branded by one news outlet as the “Social Media Own of the Year”. Wendy’s Twitter account and the team member responsible for the Twitter smackdown, Amy Brown, now live in social media infamy.

Think about this for a second, Wendy’s is a fast food restaurant. You don’t go there because you want a gourmet meal, you know what you’re getting when you drive into the parking lot. It’s cheap food that fills you up on Saturday night when everything else is closed. Yet people, myself included, go to their Twitter profile just to read their Tweets.

Wendy’s sells a $1 hamburger just like McDonalds or Burger King (please don’t tell them I wrote that) and people are reading a fast food restaurant’s Tweets in their free time. That’s nuts!

Some fast food aficionados might disagree, but you could argue Wendy’s sells a commodity. Yet their Twitter humor catapulted them way beyond just another cheap place for less than stellar food (that doesn’t get back to them).

I Don’t Care What They Sell, I Just Want to Buy It

What do I mean by that? I own all Apple tech products (computer, phone, tablet etc…). I’m an Apple fanboy. Since their brand is so strong in my mind, I buy whatever they sell.

Now look at Wendy’s, people aren’t talking about their burgers or “natural cut” french fries, they just want whatever Wendy’s offers:

Some people even ask Wendy’s to provide possible names for their offspring.

Every company dreams of these moments.

Other Thoughts

Can Your Company Pull This Off Too?

I don’t have the stones or wit for it, but do you? Something like this is hard and you have to keep it up. There’s no halfway in, you’re either all in or nothing. Consistency in voice and message is a common trait of successful social media accounts.

When you have some spare time, check out Wendy’s Twitter account, it’s still as sassy as ever.