Consumers gave Buffalo Wild Wings a lot of grief for their boneless wings. Too chewy, too dry, and too small. So the wing joint made a major change to their core product: with more meat and less breading, Buffalo Wild Wings boneless wings are now new and improved. This was the brand’s biggest product launch of the year, so they wanted to do something that would really get people’s attention and drive 300M earned media impressions.

So, we convinced the legendary Bone Thugs-N-Harmony to change their name to Boneless Thugs-N-Harmony in honor of our new boneless wings. The band’s internal riff over the name change set the wing debate on fire, and we captured the whole thing in a Behind the Music mockumentary. To add even more legitimacy to it, we launched a website selling new Boneless Thugs merch, including 24-carat-gold-dipped boneless necklaces.

Knowing we had minds to change and boneless wing myths to dispel, proving boneless wings are worth fighting for would take a unique approach. Our strategy to get the buzz our clients asked for was to fan the flames of the boneless wing debate, and to use an unexpected partnership (our audience has a penchant for 90’s nostalgia) to get people’s attention. These two components would really drive conversation and ultimately prove that boneless wings are new and better than ever at Buffalo Wild Wings.

In the iconic documentary style of VHI’s Behind the Music, we captured the internal riff between the band members as they made the tough decision to change their name after 25 years. Three members, Krayzie Bone, Wish Bone and Flesh-N-Bone, were squarely in the Boneless Thugs camp. Seduced by the delusion of boneless wings, the name change was an obvious choice to remain fresh. But there was one lone holdout who was not on board: Layzie Bone. In the words of Layzie, “I ain’t changing shit!”

Name changes have a history of getting people talking (think Puff Daddy to P. Diddy or Biggie Smalls to Notorious B.I.G.) but when a name change is inspired by boneless wings, it hit a new level of WTF?! Word spread far and wide — from Rolling Stone to ESPN to Vice to E! News, people couldn’t help but talk about the new Boneless Thugs. One tweet summed it up best: “Boneless Thugs just told IHOb to hold my beer.” We garnered 450+ million earned media impressions, and the Boneless Thugs merchandise on our website sold out in 36 hours.