How Wendy’s kept Fortnite fresh

1 min read

Nov 1, 2021 5:05:00 AM

At Contagious’ legendary Most Contagious event in December, Wendy’s recent Cannes award winning Keeping Fortnite Fresh campaign was showcased for its brilliance in engaging with the audience, right where they are, with relevant content.

Keeping Fortnite Fresh shows how closely the brand is tuned into popular culture and the needs of its audience.

Wendy’s claim to take “food seriously, but not ourselves” and has long been known for its talk-ability and snarky tweets aimed at rivals mainly about the quality of their food – which is fresh and never frozen.

So, when Fortnite introduced a new game mode, Food Fight, Wendy’s were all over it. Team Pizza was up against Team Burger, who used freezers to stores its burgers.

Rather than advertise on the periphery of Fortnite, Wendy’s capitalised on this opportunity to be right where the gamers were, promoting its always fresh, never frozen burgers.

Its red-headed avatar encouraged gamers to join Wendy’s 9-hour long quest to destroy all of the freezers in Fortnite’s fictional burger restaurants, appearing in the urban zones throughout the maps.

The enormous success of the campaign demonstrates the importance of being in the right place at the right time, with the right message.

Perhaps the most important tool marketers have at their disposal today in order to achieve this is Experience Journey Mapping.

This fundamental tool helps marketers understand how we can connect with our consumers and delight them at the moments that really matter - by mapping what their audience is thinking, doing and experiencing (good or bad!) at each step of the journey.

If you’d like to hear more about Experience Journey mapping and how we can help you, drop me a line at caroline.bottomley@oxfordsm.com