Full disclosure: I am a Wendy’s fan. Grew up on Frosties. Will go past exit after highway exit until I see red pigtails on a billboard. I once made a donation to the Dave Thomas charity.
So, it’s with a heavy heart that I say this: Wendy’s Real Time page is really annoying.
The effort is definitely there: Wendy’s is trying actively to create a website driven solely by UGC and real-time engagement. But the site itself misses the mark. They failed to heed the genius behind their now-industry standard 99cent menu – high value (fast food-wise) and low cost. There’s certainly no cost involved with the site, but I’m not seeing any value either.
At the center is a Tweet cloud, but the messages are completely unfiltered and seldom pertain to Wendy’s or any related subject. In the 20 minutes I spent on the site, the vast majority of the Tweets ranged from the general “I’m hungry,” to Guitar Hero tips, to opinions on the Yankees-Phillies series. It’s seemingly a stream of consciousness – one that no one would find particularly interesting.
Other functions include a video feed, an “Are You Real” gauge, and a “History of Wendy’s” slide show, but each hold such basic novelty appeal they didn’t convince me to come back to the site.
Also, there’s no brand voice actually on site. Granted, it does link to a twitter feed where @ UrBaconMeCrazydoles out gift-cards and discusses bacon lore, but there’s no genuine engagement beyond tongue-in-cheek (or rather bacon-in-mouth) triviality. If that Twitter feed were embedded in-site, we’d be getting somewhere.
Effectively, there’s no point to Wendy’s Real Time, other than to ensure that Wendy’s is “out there” and “doing social media.”
They’re still number one on my highway road-trip menu. But not while I’m on the information superhighway.
Thoughts? Anybody hungry?
- Pat
