For my digital brands class, I need to choose and evaluate a commercial brand online. I have decided to look into Arby’s and their marketing revival.
To start with, a couple of years ago Arby’s was in a very rough spot. Everyone I knew (and probably a majority of people) had either an indifferent or negative view on Arby’s. Their marketing went through tons of different slogans and commercials until they decided on a slogan that appealed to the audience that would like the core of their products, meat. They changed the slogan to “We have the meats” and targeted all of the self proclaimed carnivores and meat lovers. This seemed to help a lot, but I am more interested in the turn their social media has taken as of late.
In the past year or so, Arby’s social media moved into the modern times, faster than many commercial brands. They started with posting sarcastic and funny tweets targeted at news events and celebrities. Every tweet made them seem “in on their own joke” and it didn’t seem forced. This was refreshing and helped them move to a more positive view.
Even more recently Arby’s social media has shifted further away from a sales pitch to producing more content. Using art based on games and anime, their social media began to produce more and more post that were centered around artistic content with a side of Arby’s branding, over a blatant ad. This makes it much easier for people to people to like the art, retweet the picture, and immediately share an ad to all their followers. This differs a lot from the standard pictures, jokes, and hashtags that many companies use. My only suggestion is why not take this content that is becoming beloved and begin to reach out to all facets of pop culture. Why only reach the gaming and anime groups, when you can also reach a wider audience with relative ease?
This just goes to show that Arby’s is a great example of how a commercial brand can do a 180. With amazing social media content and brand management, they were able to break into a large demographic of consumers and become something people are excited about.
Thoughts of Cody East 