How Arby’s is Winning Social Media
If you happen to be one of the roughly 2.7 million people following Arby’s on Facebook, you may have recently noticed a change in their posts. While fast food restaurants typically are not known for their creativity when it comes to content marketing, the creative team at Arby’s show that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel to create effective content. By combining popular culture references with their signature branding, they have caused quite a stir in the social ecosystem.
Many brands have trouble creating content that their followers want to share. Although many people love Arby’s food, posting sandwich photos can only get them so far. This is why the Arby’s marketing team partnered with Roar Groupe to take their social media to the next level. The idea behind this new approach was to combine the distinct visual style of Arby’s packaging and food with references to popular movies, video games, TV shows and more. The creative team at Roar tested the waters with a post referencing the popular video game, “The Legend of Zelda.” Since the success of the initial post, we have seen posts referencing Terminator, Star Wars, Pokemon, Mario, Batman, Dragon Ball Z, Game of Thrones, Doctor Who and Marvel Comics, with the list growing daily.
These posts have garnered an incredibly positive response from the community with thousands of shares and tens of thousands of comments each. The beauty of their posts are that they are tonally appropriate. Consumers are smart enough to sense when a brand is going out of their way to reference popular culture for the sake of increasing sales. Not only are the posts by Arby’s sincere but they evoke a sense of nostalgia, getting the Arby’s brand in front of more people and changing how they feel about the brand. People are passionate about the subjects that Arby’s is referencing and this passion is passed on to the brand. It’s human nature to feel joy when you meet someone who shares similar interests and Arby’s is using this nature to their advantage. Their campaign has become so popular that the Content Marketing Institute even gave them the award for ‘Best Use of Facebook in Content Marketing’ this year.
This initiative was created as a collaboration between Josh Martin, Arby’s Director of Digital & Social Media and Jennifer Barclay, the Art Director at Roar Groupe. Martin is in his early 30s and is a self-proclaimed lover of Batman and Nintendo. Along with being part of Roar Groupe, Ms. Barclay spends her spare time as a cosplayer and gamer. While both Martin loved the idea of popular culture references, the higher ups at Arby’s were harder to convince. But after the amazing reception of their initial post, Barclay and her writing partner, Judd Wachstein knew they had a hit.
When creating a social media campaign, it is important to have a plan in place. Effective content marketing takes planning and strategy. The marketing specialists at Dallas Riffle Media can put together expertly created content along with a strategy to deliver it to your target audience. Give us a call at (216) 245-0835 or send us an email for a free consultation. Head over to our portfolio page to view some of our latest projects.
