May 20, 2012 18 Comments

Pushing A Hashtag Really Isn’t Going to Work Without Some Preexisting Love and Trust

Wendy's and their #upgradeyourmeal hashtag

I saw a YouTube advertisement for the fast food restaurant, Wendy’s, where they were promoting the use of the Twitter hashtag #upgradeyourmeal (click that for your own real time search). Running over to Twitter to see what they were getting for responses, I saw the sampling above.

Do any of those look like loyal Wendy’s diners to you? Do any of those tweets make the restaurant proud? Will this earn the restaurant any more buyers?

When I see this, I wonder just how it was sold. I wonder what was promised. I wonder what the agency said to the client.

Hey, Sometimes It Works

When I searched on #doritoslocostacos, the new hashtag to accompany the Taco Bell sensation of a Doritos-flavored taco shelled taco, I saw a lot more love and praise.

Why? My gut (pun intended) tells me that Taco Bell has more of a fan base than Wendy’s, and that Taco Bell might be a slightly better natural demographic fit. But what if it isn’t? Maybe Taco Bell’s agency spent more money and got a bunch of people to tweet some nice words. Maybe this is a pay-per-tweet project or another kind of “word of mouth augmentation” campaign (read as “not necessarily trustworthy”).

And Is This Really Moving The Needle?

Wendy’s wants you to “#upgradeyourmeal.” Is a trip to Wendy’s an upgrade? I like their chili a great deal. I like their Frosty. I sometimes eat their other products. No part of my mindset while there is “upgrade.” Is it for you?

I don’t normally write posts that complain about a marketing methodology, but I guess I’m just asking whether this is what we think these tools were built to accomplish. If I’m some VP of marketing at Wendy’s, who sold this to me, and why did I think it was okay? What metrics did I ask to see?

And are you selling this? How’s that working for you?

Are Love and Trust the Missing Ingredients?

I am willing to believe that people love Taco Bell. Not all of us. But I think they have a fan following. I think they have people who choose that brand of fast food over any other type. I’m fairly sure people trust Taco Bell to deliver on a certain kind of experience, however you choose to view that.

Has Wendy’s earned that? And if not, how will they get it back?

Food for thought. Yep. I said it.

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  • Shannon

    #VerizonDoesSNL promoted hashtag is not feeling much love at all either, and the positive tweets seem amazingly phony.  

  • http://www.alspaulding.com AL Spaulding

    Some companies and people are just going overboard with hashtags. Refreshing and insightful post Chris.
    Thank You.
    ~Al

  • http://raulcolon.net Raul Colon

    I think the difference in between one and the other is that with Taco Bell they are actually describing a product which you can actually fall in love with or not like at all. 

    In the other case they created a hashtag on something that can be intangible since uprading something is an action not a physical thing. 

    In virtual world where so many things are intangible it is a lot easier to sell a physical object #doritoslocostacos than the action to #upgradeyourmeal. 

    On another note those are some very long Hashtags :) 

  • Cre8do

    I believe #Hashtags can be great tool for Marketing when they are completely understood and thought out.

    It is possible that Taco Bell promoted the right #Hashtag to the right people with the right goals in mind.

    Social Media Marketing is still a very new world & the use of #Hashtags is even

  • http://outcareyourcompetition.com/ Jordan J. Caron

    Why can’t they rely on people naturally wanting to tweet about their food? 

    Hashtags do only work if people are really passionate about the brand. TaylorMade which is a golf equipment company promoted a hashtag in commercials and on sponsored players clothing a few months back. The hashtag was #driverlove and was promoting the launch of a new driver of there’s. 

    TaylorMade which lays claim to the #1 Driver in Golf wanted to spread some buzz. Since there are golfers with massive brand loyalty to TaylorMade, the hashtag is still in use despite the driver launch back in March. 

  • http://propertyagents.co/real-estate-lead-generation-course Muhammad Ayaz

    I wonder how hashtage can be beneficial for businesses on twitter and after reading this post I will consider to change my strategy for business.

  • AlexandarK

    The bigger question is what actual benefit such viral campaigns present to companies both in terms of sales and publicity. So far there haven’t been enough successful #hashtag campaigns to really back up investing time and money in promoting twitter trends.

  • http://twitter.com/brhoten Brandon Rhoten

    Appreciate the feedback, Chris. The goal behind the hashtag was to track people’s reactions to the new products. It actually worked exactly as we had hoped– and we’re actually making changes to the menu based on what we’ve learned. 

    If you’d like to discuss further, please reach out at any time. @brhoten on Twitter. 

    • http://chrisbrogan.com/ Chris Brogan

      When you say it worked, Brandon, I’ve done three surveys of three different days and found over 90% of the tweets to be derogatory, off topic, or otherwise not flattering to the brand. 

      I’m so grateful you came by, but can you explain why you would say that’s a success? 

  • http://my168project.com/ Matches Malone

    I see these types of hashtags popping up on various tv shows, and my guess is that they’re attempting to start a conversation about the episode or the series itself. I’m guessing some marketing weenie saw this, and thought it was a good idea to expand the theory to tv commercials.

    In the case of Wendy’s, they aren’t really controlling the resulting conversation. I seem to recall you writing something similar around the time companies started dipping their toe in the Twitter waters, and them thinking that having a Twitter account was enough.

  • Josh_levine

    If Wendy’s is an upgrade, what could you possibly have been eating before?

  • LindaAW

    Good morning, Chris!

    I saw what I think is a truly pointless use of a hashtag recently – at the end of a post title. I know nothing about hashtags in truth, but it just looked silly!

  • http://waldowsocial.com DJ Waldow

    Funny. I noticed the same thing, except I saw the hashtag on a (TV) commercial. Yeah, sometimes I do passively watch TV commercials. I did the same thing you did and immediately went to Twitter search. Similar results. 

    I agree that trust and love are important for the hashtag to “work” (however we define work). However, I’d also add that it’s important to call out the hashtag – tell folks what it means, why they should use it, and what’s in it for them. Right?

    Also, love that Brandon Rhoten stopped by and left a comment, but like you I’d love to hear how they are defining success…

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