Arby’s, American fast food restaurant founded in 1960, was known for their signature roast beef sandwich, not the 17 other sandwiches they make. They wanted to dominate the sandwich conversation—a conversation they weren’t even in. To put Arby’s at the top of the category we needed to refresh their “We Have the Meats” brand position to showcase their sandwich variety. Essentially, Arby’s needed to be synonymous with “sandwich.” The challenge: create a campaign that, working in conjunction with the launch of Arby’s sandwich-centric messaging on TV and digital, would disrupt the sandwich conversation on social and drive buzz and engagement in a way that no other QSR brand had done before. Prior to this activation, sandwiches were barely part of the Arby’s discussion. Our objective with the #MakeMySandwich campaign was to enter, innovate, and own the sandwich conversation. We succeeded, increasing engagement and growing social sandwich mentions by 45%.

The most direct way to let people know you make sandwiches is to make them sandwiches. So, we did that. Literally. Using only Arby’s sandwich ingredients, we created custom portraits by request (#MakeMySandwich) and posted them in real time to social media. We crafted likenesses of celebrities, influencers, pop culture characters, brands, and everyday people—really, anyone who asked. Then, we put them all together on our newly launched Instagram channel, @Sandwich. That’s right, we had Arby’s literally own @Sandwich.

Putting up unpaid posts is always risky for brands, as content may never even make it to user feeds. We banked on the custom content created for each user being compelling enough to get shared with little to no paid media, and we weren’t disappointed. As we were flooded with requests to make sandwiches, Arby’s quickly came to the forefront of the conversation in an innovative new way.

Our goal was to take over the sandwich conversation. The best place to hijack a massive discussion is Twitter. Playing off the real time nature of the channel, we were able to get the ball rolling organically with portrait requests. We stood out by responding with handmade content in real time—analog content on digital—and used that momentum to bring content across channels. Instagram is the platform for content that showcases art and craftsmanship, so we launched @Sandwich to house all the portraits in one easy to access gallery.

When selecting fans to make a sandwich for, it didn’t matter if their follower count was 1 or 1 million, as long as they asked @Arbys to #MakeMySandwich. This drove massive engagement because things like having a blue checkmark didn’t matter. Everyday people were treated the same as celebrities, and their handcrafted sandwich portraits ended up in the same gallery.

To kick off the campaign, launched in conjunction with Arby’s sandwich-centric messaging, we invited celebrities and “friends” of the brand to create buzz by tagging @Arbys for portrait requests using #MakeMySandwich. Using only ingredients available at Arby’s, we artfully crafted each person’s likeness and replied with their sandwich portrait. Each piece took between 2-4 hours to assemble, illustrating the care that goes into each of Arby’s handcrafted sandwiches.

After the first posts, requests for sandwich portraits rolled in. Our portrait artists worked nonstop, hand selecting over 100 people for custom-built sandwich portraits, regardless of follower count, each creation more meticulous than the last. They were shared across platforms, including real-time Twitter replies, Facebook Lives, build-along videos, Instagram Stories, carousels, and galleries. With more than 32,000 portrait requests in the first three weeks, fulfilling each request would’ve taken over 96,000 of build time. We wish we could have done them all.

Responding in real time to fans’ requests, we created more than 100 highly detailed, hyper-personalized pieces of content out of fresh, perishable sandwich ingredients. In under three weeks, with minimal media support, we engaged fans to the tune of 32k #MakeMySandwich requests and:

• 17.5M Twitter impressions (65% earned)

• 11M Facebook impressions

• 5.5M Instagram impressions

• 99% positive sentiment

Arby’s fans weren’t the only ones getting in on #MakeMySandwich. When Wendy’s, a competitor of Arby’s notorious for snarky antagonization of brands, requested a custom portrait, we got to work (but with the added “topping” of an Arby’s hat).

Across social, #MakeMySandwich engaged and educated fans about Arby’s sandwich variety. Our campaign propelled the brand to the forefront of the conversation, driving 1:1, personalized communication in an authentic, socially innovative way. Arby’s wanted to own the sandwich conversation and using the power of engagement on social, we delivered.