Wendy's Believes This Pretzel Bacon Cheeseburger Will Bring In The Millennials
AdAge's Maureen Morrison says that this is a major push to go after an increasingly important demographic that favors "fast-casual chains over fast-food chains and values convenience, premium ingredients, choice and healthier offerings."
Fast-food chains (like McDonald's) have recently become obsessed with millennials, fearing that they're turning away from classic American fast-food staples for weirder, trendier fare.
The new burger sports additions that the company hopes will bring in customers looking for something closer to a "craft" burger.
The most obvious change is the bun: rather using normal bread, the company opted for what appears to resemble a soft pretzel.
The other main ingredient is bacon, which has had a major surge in popularity over the last few years.
While the concept sounds intriguing, initial reactions from food critics are have not been positive. The Houston Press's Christina Uticone noted that the bun was "dry, chalky, almost dusty when tasted on its own."
The social media campaign, run by digital marketing agency VML, consists of a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #pretzellovesongs. Select tweets made using the hashtag will be turned into a love song which will be performed by Lachey, the lead singer of 98 Degrees, on a live stream on the evening of July 8th.
It's unclear how effective the campaign is proving. A search for tweets using the campaign's hashtag a mere three hours before the livestream is set to go up returns surprisingly few posts that seem fit to be turned into lyrics. The event page for the live stream has approximately 1,300 followers at the time of writing.