Wendy’s innovative social media strategy drove such massive engagement and reach that we secured the No. 1 organic share of voice in the entire restaurant category on the world’s largest social platform, Facebook — beating our biggest competitor, McDonald’s, by 30%. Wendy’s connected with younger generations by tapping into a universal human and social media behavior: our parents' (aka boomers) quirks. Both on and off of social media, these quirks can be irritating, but endearing. Wendy’s bravely disregarded established Facebook best practices and embraced boomer best practices, leading Meta to adopt our strategy as new best practices to reach GenZ.

While younger generations have grown up with social media and therefore have learned generally acceptable etiquette for what one should and should not post, the older generations have not had the same experience or media literacy training. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, and when it comes to social media use, they could be right. Therefore, our parents’ quirks both on and off social media can be irritating, but also incredibly endearing — even entertaining. After all, they’re our family. And in America, older users have a distinct-yet-endearing style of Facebook posts. Posts without nuance, rules, or a clue of what is and is not considered appropriate to share on Facebook. They might not be the best at social media, but they are effective and they are dominant on the platform.

The year 2024 marks 20 years of Facebook. Naturally, the platform’s user base is going to age as it continues to grow and mature. However, due to its age and scale, it still remains the most used social platform, even for younger users. They haven’t really known life without Facebook. It’s just something you have, much like an email address. Therefore, this presents Wendy’s with a massive pool of fast food eaters to reach.

Like most brands, Wendy’s messaging has always been geared toward a younger audience.As a quick-service restaurant (QSR), Wendy's — and our competitors' — biggest growth opportunity is young people, specifically 18- to 34-year-olds.

But it's a generational tradition for younger generations to blaze their own trails and distance themselves from the interests of older generations.

Our objective was to appeal to a newer, younger consumer without alienating our connection to our core consumer.

Appeal without alienation is a skill Wendy’s has proven expertise in through activations like our annual #NationalRoastDay, when users gladly ask to be roasted by Wendy’s and then share it as a point of pride.

While Wendy’s has developed a robust following across social media platforms, including newer and younger platforms such as TikTok and Twitch, we discovered opportunity in the form of an older, overlooked, and arguably less hip platform: Facebook.

Despite newcomers like TikTok achieving massive growth among young people, Facebook still remains the most used social platform. In fact, 85% of TikTok users also use Facebook, which offers Wendy’s a massive audience of fast food eaters.

So how might we reach these younger users without alienating our current slightly older users?

Our idea was to mimic the endearing qualities and quirks of older users' posts to reach younger users. Something never seen before from a brand, Wendy’s posts would ditch brand best practices and contain the endearing and quirky qualities that younger users are accustomed to seeing from older friends and family members, thus allowing Wendy’s to reach both audiences seamlessly.

Baby boomers, or Americans who were born from 1955 to 1964, were raised on fast food. They came of age during the golden age of fast food when restaurants like McDonald’s rose to prominence in the 1950s, while Wendy’s was founded just a few years later, in 1969. Therefore, this audience is a valuable one, especially as baby boomers in America outspend millennials and Gen Z despite being a smaller audience.

However, younger audiences, such as millennials and Gen Z, are equally valuable as they are eating in the fast food category most often and therefore represent our opportunity for growth.

Ninety-nine percent of Americans eat fast food, and nothing spans generations and demographics like Facebook. Therefore, how might we stay true to ourselves and be uniquely Wendy’s while appealing to virtually everyone?

When you’re trying to connect with humans, why would you adhere to brand best practices? Why wouldn’t you interact with people the way they interact with each other?

We bravely ditched Facebook’s brand best practices and embraced boomer best practices: low-quality pictures, all capital letters, nostalgia, misspellings, and unrelated comments.

We replaced polished food photography with photos from a cell phone or of a television screen showing our commercials. We turned autocorrect off and caps lock on as we asked for advice on technology and shared nostalgic posts that kids today would never understand.

Older Facebook users engaged as they normally would with any other post shared to their Facebook feed from a friend, while younger users began role-playing as older Facebook users in the comments section.

Together, we developed a community within Wendy’s social media posts that was having fun with, not at the expense of, older users.

Users instantly got in on the joke and began engaging. We generated more engagements among older and younger users in 2023 than the past three years combined. Users shared our posts off of Facebook and onto TikTok and YouTube as sources of entertainment.

Our post engagement fueled massive amounts of reach. Generating more than 200 million organic impressions — a 235% increase from the year prior and more than the past three years combined.

Our performance led Wendy’s to steal so much share of voice from our competitors that we became the No. 1 brand in organic share of voice in the entire restaurant category on Facebook! We beat our biggest competitor, McDonald’s, by 30% despite having 10x fewer followers!

However, our truest form of validation came from Meta adapting our disregard of Facebook best practices for boomer best practices as new creative best practices to reach GenZ on Facebook!

Our parents’ quirks both on and off social media can be irritating, but also incredibly endearing — even entertaining. After all, they’re our family so it is rooted in love. And in America, older users have a distinct-yet-endearing style of Facebook posts. Posts without nuance, rules, or a clue of what is and is not considered appropriate to share on Facebook. They might not be the best at social media, but they are effective and they are dominant on the platform.

The posts from our parents are distinct in their use of all capital letters, oversharing of personal information, blurry or unflattering photos, and technical difficulties. Almost universally they use the platform in a confidently incorrect way, and you have to admire and respect the freedom in which they post without a care as compared to the highly manicured and curated social feeds of Millennials and Gen Z.