Fixing A&W's Social Media Troubles.

This is a student-concept for a Sheridan Pilon School of Business Digital Marketing Course
By: Taylor Finlay

This is a digital marketing campaign concept for A&W, addressing their weak social media presence when compared to their competitors.

A&W is presented and the great Canadian fast food supplier, therefore we must bolster and expand that very idea.

This campaign will last 6 months and involve the platforms of YouTube, twitter and Facebook. #TheGreatCanadian

Through internal research and nominations, A&W will launch a YouTube series focussing on other “Great Canadian” businesses using all Canadian products. 6 videos ( 1 per month ) 6 minutes in length, starting in the Spring 2016, ran annually as a community building and product relevancy program, when consumers are exited for springtime. Three video nominations will be generated from within A&W featuring Canadian farms and businesses involved in food supply for A&W, outlining why they’re better, focussing on the Canadians behind the products. The Winner will have a hand in designing the #GreatCanadian Burger which will be in circulation for the next year until another winner is nominated.

The other three videos will be community nominated great Canadians. These videos will not be food specific however they must feature Canadians. For Example: Canadian Hockey players, Canadian athletes, New Canadian Start Ups, or even Canadian charity organizations.

This campaign will fulfill the 50/50 rule by utilizing content A&W wants to consumer to know, reinforcing messages already put in place by previous content posted. Balancing with new community chosen content ensuring high view and share levels.

This campaign will be rolled out on both twitter and YouTube at the same time.  An announcement video featuring many Great Canadian things along with a great Canadian singer/songwriter/artist in music video format will set the tone. It’s a fun Canadian pride oriented program. Twitter posts would like to the video asking the follower base what they thought defined a great Canadian, and who they would choose. Nomination would be accepted through twitter posts hash tagging #GreatCanadian as well as through comments on the YouTube announcement video.

This campaign will attract a wide range of Canadians, playing on national pride, people will be excited to see real Canadians featured and marketed after a simple nomination for simply being themselves.

Addressing Wendy's and A&W's Online Communities

Community feedback and fanpages

Wendys:

Hachtagify rating: 45.9

To fully understand the brands we are studying we must hit the keyboard and find consumer responses and communities addressing the companies in question. Please follow the links and develop your own unbiased opinion regarding these two interesting brands.

http://fastfoodgeek.com/food-reviews/wendys-daves-single-new-2016/

Fast food geek presents a seemingly unbiased review of redesigned Dave’s Single. Informative and thorough fastfoodgeek.com gave it a positive review adding to a positive reputation.

http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2013/07/reality-check-wendys-new-pretzel-bacon-cheeseburger-review.html

Serious eats put together a great review on the pretzel bunn bacon cheeseburger. Although it is an older review ( 2013) this review is great because it shows a large community following and commenting on the Wendy’s product line up with a total of 60 Comments.

http://www.businessinsider.com/wendys-breakfast-sandwich-review-2016-3

Business Insider writer Marina Nazaro has put together a well-rounded article reviewing the breakfast side of Wendy’s. She states it tastes “Genuine” when compared to other fast foods. This article has 30,775 Views.

Wendy’s Has a great community following consisting of review pages and articles addressing new products.

A&W:

Hashtagify Rating : 26.9

https://mssociety.ca/resources/news/article/aw-canada-and-the-ms-society-of-canada-join-forces-for-an-8th-year-to-beat-ms

The MS society of Canada released this national news release outlining the program and #BurgersToBeatMS. This is a great example to A&Ws effort to be involved in charitable community programs within Canada.

https://www.zomato.com/vancouver/a-w-oakridge-vancouver/reviews

Zomato.com shows both comments on the business and blog posts addressing the community surrounding the brand. Mostly they are positive showing that although they do not have a strong social media presence, they remain a Canadian staple fast food, and seen as an ungrade from the “ regular brands” such as McDonalds ect.

http://ca.indeed.com/cmp/A&W-Restaurants/reviews?fcountry=ALL&fjobtitle=Shift+Manager

Ineed.com give you a look into the inner workings of the brand with employee and work environment reviews.  This is an important to generate perspective because the employee behind the counter are responsible for the construction of the product.

Understanding Wendy's and A&Ws Youtube Channels

Wendy’s:

Joined Youtube: Oct 29, 2005

Posting Frequency: 2-3 Videos a month

Wendy’s posts frequently with a high level of production value addressing their main focus on social media “NEW” “REDESIGNED” products. Furthermore, they host community building videos such as DIY projects to facilitate a regular viewing audience. This helps the channel stay contemporary.

They have THREE recent videos addressing their redesigned chicken sandwich with the leader topping 2.7 Million views! This is a very successful video because it follows the short and sweet rule or posting. Informative, visually appealing and short. Reusing main information points on other social media platforms while presenting it in short and to the point way. 

A&W:

Joined Youtube: Aug 26, 2013

Posting Frequency: 2 videos in the past month… 8 Videos TOTAL ever posted.

When A&W does post, they use recognizable videos hosts, and community centric talk. Out of the eight videos they have posted, their top post has hit 33k Views. This is dismal for a YouTube account of a major player in the Canadian fast food industry. They do focus on the main selling point; being all Canadian. However, they just don’t have the amount of content needed to facilitate a true channel following.  They do represent they’re audience well posting in both French and English languages. Keywords such as 100% Canadian, and all Canadian products are within the videos but are not presented effectively when comparing to Wendy’s.

Their most popular recent post was their Burgers to beet MS day video, in which they announce a dollar from every teen burger will go toward beating MS. This was not a success yet was still the most popular, with only 2700 views. 

Company:	A&W	Wendy’s
Subscribers:	65,413	29,837,453
Views:	1605	100,681

Wendy’s wins this comparison quite easily; A&W fails to bring a high level of production quality into their videos like Wendy’s. Also the severe difference in number of comments of the two leading videos speaks volumes : (A&W: 3, Wendy’s: 15).