Launching Wendy’s breakfast with the Baconator!

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Launching Wendy’s Breakfast with the Iconic Baconator Campaign

It was March 2nd, just 21 days ago. Hundreds of OOH installers rose early, checked their safety gear, materials and workplans and got into their trucks. They headed out across the country to begin climbing OOH structures to raise a variety of creative designs on thousands of corners and highways nationwide. The following Monday, the US OOH media landscape served as the backdrop for Wendy’s long-anticipated new menu offerings: BREAKFAST. And oh my, the outcome exceeded all expectations.

Let me tell you a little more about the OOH effort.

The key objective for the OOH campaign was to drive mass awareness of Wendy’s new breakfast menu, and achieve deep media reach by using specifically selected inventory located within a certain radius from one of Wendy’s approximately 5,800 store locations across the US.

In addition to the clear objectives and placement criteria, Wendy’s required a vigorous location review and approval process that included their partner agencies of record, field marketing leadership and co-ops. This meant that every single location required review and approval by more than 10 people, with final decisions made by local franchisees within each co-op. There are approximately 650 unique franchise operators in the Wendy’s system.

In addition to OOH unit selection, we assisted in defining directional information for OOH units in select DMAs. Talon also provided a Spanish speaking data index which was used to define which locations made sense for Spanish language copy. Talon used data from Geopath, Google Street view, market rides, Plato, our proprietary software, OOH media vendor partners along with our experienced people as part of the decision-making process.

Talon’s US strategic planning and investment team and production team worked closely with Wendy’s corporate team around development of the creative, providing resize and creative adjustments for unique size requirements and formats for four unique creative choices and selected regional copy. We used static locations so as to achieve 100% share of voice on the OOH unit.

Historically, few brands have initiated OOH efforts of this size, scale and scope. When campaigns of this size are planned and executed, it is common for the OOH agency to restrict media style choice in the interest of planning, buying and execution simplicity. One of the most powerful elements of this campaign was Wendy’s desire for media styles that best suited the geographical market. We were able to deliver on this requirement and provide a variety of media styles at scale. Ultimately, the campaign utilized 12 media styles, including transit and rail OOH products.

The ability to bring a campaign of this to market would not have been possible without Talon’s OOH media vendor partnerships. The assignment was delivered to them under strict NDA requirements covering several months prior to execution. Many also agreed to book locations well in advance, outside of general practice. For this and more, Talon expresses its deep gratitude to the more than 50 OOH media vendor partners for the trust you placed in us.

We also recognize and appreciate the wherewithal and scrutiny of the OOH vendor partner contracting and post buying teams who spent energy and attention ensuring the details of the execution were just right.

Finally, to the men and women who climbed the taller-than-they seem poles that early morning of March 2, facing weather and wind to raise Wendy’s OOH, we are indebted. no amount of planning and strategy matters without you. Thank you.

I can say with pride and conviction that, from planning to production to shipping, Talon executed this campaign the right way and on time. Our production partners pivoted when needed and our partner post buying teams kept us apprised in real time. Our partner reps stayed engaged and our operations teams across the country adjusted as needed and simply got the thing done…beautifully.

I should also mention that, from planning to execution, Wendy’s was and is a class act. Their executive leadership, Field Marketing leadership, partner AORs and franchisees expected a lot, quickly and with high quality, as they should. However, like our OOH vendor partners, they also showed pragmatism, trust, decisiveness, speed, and flexibility in the face of changes along the way.

Here is a peek at a few of the postings nationwide:

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And, a gorgeous little sizzle reel courtesy of one of our partners, Lamar Advertising. It features impressive stats related to their portion of the Wendy’s campaign:

Kristy Day VP, Client Services