Advertising
After successful early growth of the chain, sales flattened as the company struggled to achieve brand differentiation in the highly competitive fast-food market. This situation would turn around in the mid-1980s. Starting on January 9, 1984, elderly actress Clara Peller was featured in the successful "Where's the Beef?" North American commercial campaign written by Cliff Freeman. Her famous line quickly entered the American pop culture (it was even used by Walter Mondale in a debate with Gary Hart in the Democratic primary election) and served to promote Wendy's hamburgers. Peller, age 84, was dropped from the campaign in 1985 because she performed in a commercial for Prego spaghetti sauce, saying she "finally found" the beef.
Peller was soon after replaced by a much less successful "give a little nibble" campaign, which was in turn replaced by Wendy's founder Dave Thomas himself. Soft-spoken and bashful, the "Dave" ads generally focused on Thomas praising his products and offering a commitment to quality service, although there would occasionally be "wackier" ads as well. In 1997, the company pulled its advertising from the sitcom Ellen after the show's main character came out as a lesbian. Members of the gay community responded with a boycott.
After Dave Thomas' death in 2002, Wendy's struggled to find a new advertising campaign. After a round of conventional ads describing the food they serve, in 2004 they tried using a character they made called "Mr. Wendy" who claimed to be the unofficial spokesperson for the chain. These proved to be extremely unsuccessful. After seven months, Wendy's returned to a campaign focusing on the difference between Wendy's square hamburgers and the round hamburgers of competitors.
Wendy's marketing arm engages in product placement in films and television and is sometimes seen on ABC's reality show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, serving food to the more than 100 construction workers. A recent Wendy's commercial features the tune from the Violent Femmes song "Blister in the Sun."
With their recent "that's right" ad campaign not a success, Wendy's unveiled a new ad campaign, featuring an animated Wendy that's voiced by Luci Christian highlighting certain menu items. The new ad campaign made its debut in late January 2008, with a new slogan: "It's waaaay better than fast food. It's Wendy's." The company's most recent slogan, "you know when it's real", was introduced in 2009.
One of the chain's newest TV ad campaigns, launched in 2011 alongside the introduction of the new "Dave's Hot 'N Juicy" hamburgers, features the chain's namesake Wendy Thomas in some commercials. Since April 2012, Wendy's main ad campaign features Morgan Smith Goodwin as Red, as introduced with Wendy's new slogan, "Now that's better".
Wendy's is the official sponsor of ESPN Football Friday every Friday during football season, getting fans ready with shows throughout the day previewing the upcoming college and NFL games. Also, Wendy's is the sponsor of the NBC Sunday Night Football Postgame show.
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Famous quotes containing the word advertising:
“The growing of food and the growing of children are both vital to the family’s survival.... Who would dare make the judgment that holding your youngest baby on your lap is less important than weeding a few more yards in the maize field? Yet this is the judgment our society makes constantly. Production of autos, canned soup, advertising copy is important. Housework—cleaning, feeding, and caring—is unimportant.”
—Debbie Taylor (20th century)
“The same people who tell us that smoking doesn’t cause cancer are now telling us that advertising cigarettes doesn’t cause smoking.”
—Ellen Goodman (b. 1941)
“The susceptibility of the average modern to pictorial suggestion enables advertising to exploit his lessened power of judgment.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)