Wendy's Twitter Battle

Wendy's is a classic American food restaurant that most people have been to or at least heard of in their lifetime. Being open since 1969, Wendy's has had to grow and change with the times in order to remain a profitable business. Their value proposition has always been uniqueness. Their patties are square, always fresh, and they have a lot of options other fast food restaurants don't offer such as chili, variety of salads, various lemonade flavors, and frostys. With more and more unique businesses popping up, Wendy's has to get extra creative with their marketing strategies. Alongside unique food options, they dove into social media.

Joining Twitter in 2009, Wendy's has built a strong and sassy media presence. To me, it seems like Wendy's hired the most social media fluent millennial(s) they could find and gave them free range over social media marketing. I couldn't find the exact tweet that started it, but while bantering with followers one day, Wendy's got into a rap/ roast battle over whether their beef was really served fresh or not. Tweeting roasts to fans and other restaurant chains like McDonald's and I-hop became a daily thing for Wendy's and it's still going strong. They'll roast anyone who continuously calls them out in the comments, questions the integrity of their beef's freshness, or provokes them in any other way. (Compilation of Wendy's roast's). As a marketing strategy, they worked really well for the most part because they completely nailed it with molding their brand to the platform. When they take out the corporation talk  and let real people run their page, they become much more transparent. By acting like real people on twitter, Wendy's hit the mark.  That being said, Wendy's got a little too real, and didn't do their research before posting a meme that made people outraged.


 Once upon a time, artists and children's book author Matt Furie created Pepe the frog as a part of his Myspace series called "Boys Club" in 2005. Fast forward ten or so years, Pepe becomes an infamous meme icon, especially among millennials. During the Hillary VS. Trump campaign, Pepe sadly got adopted as a symbol used by white supremacists. Hillary declared Pepe as a "racist hate symbol" despite people's efforts to save his image by posting wholesome Pepe memes.

Wendy's is using memes as a marketing strategy, so when a follower tweeted them asking "got any memes" they posted a picture of Pepe the frog dressed as Wendy, not knowing Pepe's original meaning had been destroyed. People began calling them racist and asked what was going on. Wendy's soon replied, putting on their corporation face again, apologizing that the person who posted it didn't know the meaning and the post was deleted.Wendy's did not seem to suffer from this too much however, because their online persona is still going strong and just last march they dropped an actual mixed tape dissing other fast food chains. Check it out  Here.

I think Wendy's is doing excellent for all the young people and heavy social media users out there because those are the ones that understand the language of Wendy's online persona. They are hitting the target market perfectly but like all trends, this one shall die too and Wendy's has definitely burned some bridges with people. Once this trend dies it might be hard getting some people to partner with them or take them seriously. If I was the marketing manager I would keep going with this. As far as marketing goes, what works is constantly changing so there's no time to think about what ifs. Even though the trend might die, the young people who eat at Wendy's now won't dislike Wendy's for their content later on. They hooked millennial as long terms consumers.

• What do you guys think?
• Where do you think Wendy's will go from here?

Wendy's-Pepe
pepe-the-frog
citation

Lost Lands Music Festival

  Lost Lands Music Festival, to put it into simplest terms, is the super bowl of EDM (Electronic Dance Music) festivals. Once a year Excision puts on a historic themed, three day festival with giant dinosaurs, a volcano, a hammock village, a 20ft water slide, food and shopping vendors, and one million watts of bass provided by 66 individual bass artists. Lost Lands welcomed over 37,000 attendees this year, displaying the mass popularity the festival has gained in just two years. Someone outside the community may wonder what makes this festival so popular over any other in it's genre, I can confirm it is Excision's Value Proposition.

    It's apparent Excision's selling an experience; he knows that and uses it to his advantage. Beside being the loudest music festival in the world, Excision donated thousands of dollars to local causes and was precise in keeping all fans informed on all social media platforms, including the Lost Lands app.
    Aside from all the fun, with a crowd that large, crisis is bound to happen. During the festival two attendees were taken to the hospital for unidentified reasons and later died. During this time excision was managing the festival and performing each night, so he made no public announcements about the loss of two fans until a few days later. This caused a lot of buzz in the community.
     People immediately took to twitter to start spreading rumors and form opinions. Comments like Grace and Victoria's caused serious concern, despite excision's post denying all rumors. I personally read many people say they will never return to Lost Lands. That unfortunately results in a direct loss of money and reputation, and chances of the festival living on to see more years.

  Though there were several fans   leaving unhappy comments, there was also an overwhelming amount of fans leaving support for Excision and all his efforts to make the festival such a magical experience. I agree with Rosso's view of Lost Lands because from a business stand point, Excision went above and beyond with his service and attention to fans to make sure his value proposition remained fresh and worth the money fans put into his festivals. Every time Excision made an adjustment to enhance the experience of the festival, he was marketing for himself. He was giving people a reason to come back next year. He even made a tweet saying to tag the Lost Lands Page if any problems arise at the festival so he could fix them now instead of waiting until next year. That's a purple cow in the concert industry. How many artists will reply to their fans on social media and take instant action to make sure they enjoy the festival as much as possible?
    If I were to be in Excison's shoes I probably would've made a longer statement and posted it sooner than he did, but that's just how I cope with things. I would also take extra caution and empahsize safety to win people back.
   In this assignment I learned how important it is to have a good reputation online as a business and if I'm going to ever host any sort of event within my business I need to remember anything that goes on at my event represents me in the eyes of the consumer.



Lost Lamds Official Twitter
Excision Official twitter
Twitter.rumors www.billboard.com
https://twitter.com
http://www.lostlandsfestival.com
www.musicfestnews.com
 Ravepic.com

"I'm famous And This is A Commercial"-Analyzed

  "I'm Famous And This Is A Commercial", as soon as I read that it caught my attention which is exactly why I decided it would be good material to discuss for the topic given. The article pertains to a protein bar campaign from company RXBar (bought by Kellog's last fall for $4600million though still commonly called RXBar)  with rapper Ice-T coming out of a door crafted to look like their product packaging, then casually stating the new slogan and shutting the door again. Article author Jessica Wohl took note of how well the "new spin"on the companies No B.S. campaign fit due to the not so obvious celebrity and unamused tone when delivering his line.Wohl then discussed the biggest takeaway being RXBar selling their brand instead of their their bar by using unconventional advertising over slow-mo videos of ingredients being concocted.

  Concerning value proposition, RXBar is promising no B.S. They offer truth and simplicity. It's what the brand is centered around. When they use the term "Bullshit" it shows that they're real people and aren't afraid to show it. People can relate to that. The campaign is a purple cow as far as protein bar advertisements go. They stand out far more than other protein bar advertisements, I mean can you recall a single add you've seen for a protein bar? However, their advertising isn't perfect. One of the reasons behind using Ice-T was to advertise to people who usually wouldn't buy their product, and that's aiming for the middle of the bell curve when they need to start with the early adopters.

  Protein bars are typically mundane to people outside of the nutrition and fitness realm, and even some people within the community aren't too jazzed about them either. This faces RXBar with a problem of constantly changing in order to stay interesting. How far can a advertising go to make a protein bar exciting? They are also pressed with conservative minded people being offended with their slogan and sarcasm.

What makes this company so unique is the combination of their intended audience and the approach they are taking to advertise. RXBar is trying to sell to down to earth people, prompting the No B.S. label, as well as people who are into fitness, thus the protein bar. They use bland colors on their packaging yet display bold words with edgy meaning. Mixed with the use of a celebrity, an unconventional one such as Ice T stating his fame and purpose, it really creates a unique eye catching ad.

  If I were the brand manager I would use an unconventional person like RXBar has, but I would make it a person from the younger generation edgy community because that's who I believe would be the early adopters of the new campaign. Today's young adults are obsessed with having edge, but they also understand the importance of health and fitness so I think this campaign would really appeal to them.

  Doing this project confirmed the concepts we've been studying and reading about in class. It showed me how it's really not about the product you're selling but the way in which you represent yourself and resonate with other people.

https://adage.com/article/cadent/ice-t-delivers-rxbar-s-b-s-message-campaign/314531/

https://www.rxbar.com/ps/vp6r-1?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-azVzrLj3QIVi8VkCh1OjACmEAAYASAAEgLWEvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

https://www.kelloggs.com/en_US/home.html/

Why Marketing

• What prompted you to enroll in this course?
• Are you a business/marketing major?
• What are you most interested in learning about marketing?
• Tell us something you are passionate about outside of college

   I  want to start a business selling crystals, apothecary, and other related products and to do that I have to go to school. So, I am enrolled in Principles of marketing because I am doing a two year CTE program for Practical Business Management and this class is a part of my journey to my degree. I am a business major as I am going for a degree in Practical Business Management. Personally, I am most excited to learn skills that I can apply to my own business, as I am very eager to start it up. So, there's not really a main thing I am excited to learn, I'm just ready to learn all there is so learn about marketing so I can one day apply it to my personal business. Confucius once said "choose a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life", for that very reason my passion outside of school is connected to what I'm focused on in school. I am passionate about enlightenment, living my life with an expanded consciousness and mindfulness, which goes hand in hand with what I want to sell (crystals, meditation books, apothecary, incense, etc) in my shop.