2023 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

Wendy's Canada faced a daunting challenge when it decided to expand into the highly competitive Canadian breakfast market, which is dominated by Tim Hortons and McDonald's. To make adding breakfast worthwhile for its franchisees, Wendy's needed to generate significant revenue growth. The company decided to focus on its strengths and leverage its reputation as the place for bacon. Research showed that consumers were dissatisfied with the quality and serving size of bacon offered by competitors, which gave Wendy's an opportunity to differentiate itself. Wendy's thick-cut, smoked with applewood, and cooked fresh in-restaurant bacon was something special that resonated with Canadians who are obsessed with bacon.

To launch its breakfast menu, Wendy's developed a campaign centered on the question "Where's the Bacon?" This campaign harkened back to the successful "Where's the Beef?" campaign Wendy's ran in 1983, which focused on the differences between its hamburgers and the competition. The "Where's the Bacon?" campaign featured unbranded billboards across Canada juxtaposing images of sad-looking competitor breakfast sandwiches with the question "Where's the Bacon?" When breakfast was ready to launch in-restaurant, Wendy's kicked off its full campaign with a TV spot featuring a diverse and modern set of three grannies who were incredulous at the lack of bacon at the competitors. The set design and script were updated to work not just in TV but also across online video and social media channels, including TikTok.

The results and impact of the "Where's the Bacon?" campaign were significant. Wendy's bacon and grannies were everywhere, with news outlets talking about Wendy's taking on the competition, and fast-food influencers raving about Wendy's bacon. Wendy's saw a 7197% increase in link clicks on Twitter within the first day of the breakfast launch. Wendy's restaurants sold more than 68,000 pounds of bacon in the first four weeks, more than one million slices of bacon, and weekly average sales were more than 20% higher than the forecasted objective.

Wendy's successful launch into the Canadian breakfast market proved that making the decision to wake up early to offer breakfast was bringing home the bacon.

Credits

McCann Canada:
Chief Strategy Officer: AJ Jones
Strategy: Liam Brown
Chief Creative Officer: Josh Stein
Associate Creative Director: Amy O’Neill
Associate Creative Director: Bill Schaefer
Art Director: Olivia Hashka
Copywriter: Jonathan Dick
VP, Executive Producer: Jacqueline Bellmore
Producer: Laurie Filgiano
Producer: Ingrid Kroboth
Producer: Amanda Morrison
VP, Director of Business Leadership: Patrick O’Donovan
Account Director: Alexandra Lindsay
Account Executive: Claire Morand

McCann (Website Landing Page):
Account Director: Andrew Moschuk
Brent Vollick: Program Manager
Digital Designer: Jason Miller
Senior Developer: Michael Harley

Craft:
Producer: Kristina Loschiavo
Editor: Harrison Glachan
Audio Engineer: Dino Cuzzolino
Print Producer: Jamy Ferreira
Retoucher: Jean-Pierre Goulet
Graphic Designer: Peter Rambachan

Initiative (Media):
Vice President, Client Advice & Management: Ishma Alexander-Huet
Group Account Director: Raichelle Ursua
Manager, Communications Design: Emily Johnston
Senior Communications Designer : Christina White
Associate, Communications Design : Dana Tartir

Ketchum (PR):
Managing Director: Erin Manning
Vice President: Bernard Cote
Associate Account Executive: Emily Keen

Production:
Production House
Partners – Production House
Ben & Dave – Directors
Jeff Shwartz – Producer
Sammy Inayeh - DOP
Mann Casting - Casting

Editorial House TV:
Griff Henderson – Editor
Sam Rousseau – Assistant Editor
Emily McKay – Executive Producer
Darling - VFX and Colour
Kassi Bellamy – Colourist
Lauren Rempel – VFX Artist
Morgan Campbell - Producer
Pirate - Audio House
Vanya Drakul – Voice and Music Director
Kyle Anderson - Engineer
Maggie Blouin Pearl - Producer

Print:
Westside - Photography Studio
Vicky Lam – Photographer
Tom Nesbitt – Executive Producer