All fast food restaurants have something spicy on the menu, but they never do spicy justice and customers are left wanting more. In January 2022, Arby’s dropped the spiciest sandwich in QSR – the Diablo Dare – a brisket or chicken sandwich topped with jalapeños, fiery sauce, ghost pepper cheese, and spicy seasoning, served on a chipotle bun. This limited-time sandwich offering was so fiery, it came with a free extinguisher: a vanilla shake.

Without any of its traditional media support, Arby’s needed a way to spread awareness of the hottest item in fast food.

The Diablo Dare comes with a shake, but where things get interesting is whether or not you need the shake. Arby’s leveraged that tension and challenged TikTok to try and eat the sandwich without sipping any of the mouth-cooling shake.

A branded filter was created to showcase the heat; Buster Poindexter’s hit song, “Hot Hot Hot,” was remixed with new lyrics, sung by Arby’s celebrity voice talent, Ving Rhames; and for those who didn’t see the challenge all over TikTok, QR-coded stickers were on every Diablo Dare box purchased at the restaurant, driving consumers to the dare.

Arby’s enlisted a roster of influencers, from top tier to micro influencers, to kick off the challenge. From there, TikTokers had their own fun taking on the Diablo Dare.

By claiming the Diablo Dare to be the spiciest sandwich in QSR and pairing it with a challenge, excited media and consumers were instantly intrigued and wanted see if they could handle the sandwich’s spice levels. A strong call-to-action, that is tapped into consumer and social behavior around spicy foods, offered more opportunity for the challenge to go viral and create that mass moment on TikTok.

The call to action was simple yet influential enough to drive interest, purchase and participation. The challenge became so popular that Arby’s sold out of the sandwiches nationwide. In short, we challenged the entire country, and the entire country accepted it.

To generate excitement around the upcoming challenge, Arby’s teased the Diablo Dare challenge through PR stories and social videos posted to Arby’s TikTok and Instagram channels the week leading up to the official launch. Simultaneously, the sandwich started rolling out nationwide, with QR-coded sandwich boxes that drove customers to Arby’s TikTok channel.

On Tuesday, January 18, the influencer videos dropped, ranging from top tier to micro influencers, inviting everyone to take on the challenge.

For three weeks, Arby’s saw TikTokers participating in the challenge utilizing the branded filter, official challenge hashtag, and the remix of Buster Poindexter’s hit song, “Hot, Hot, Hot.”

Arby’s Diablo Dare lit up conversation, boasting 1.4 billion earned media impressions, 3 billion social impressions, and 5,200 social mentions. The challenge also reached over 75 million on TikTok, which was 8% above average TikTok hashtag challenge benchmarks.

#ArbysDiabloDare was named one of Ad Age’s Top Brand TikToks in January and was picked up by a wide range of pop culture, food, and lifestyle media. Jon Stewart, the beloved former host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show even mentioned the challenge in a tweet to his 1.3 million followers.

QSRs are consistently looking for ways to bring new customers into restaurants. The Diablo Dare over-indexed with new and younger guests by 7%, significantly outperforming other Arby’s limited-time offerings.