- Wendy’s has teamed with T-Pain as a part of a campaign across the return of the Strawberry Frosty, per details shared with Marketing Dive.
- As a part of the hassle, dubbed “Fros-T-Pain,” the rapper-singer has remade his 2007 hit “Buy U a Drank” with latest lyrics in regards to the Frosty flavor. “Buy U a Frosty” is obtainable on Wendy’s YouTube channel and will soon be available for consumers to duet on TikTok.
- The campaign was created by VMLY&R, produced by SixTwentySix and directed by Miles & AJ. It represents Wendy’s latest attempt to have interaction with consumers around popular culture and follows a raft of campaigns from various brands that has seen musicians remix their hits into brand jingles.
Wendy’s latest campaign goals to have interaction with popular culture nostalgia to advertise the summertime return of its Strawberry Frosty treat. The tie-up with T-Pain touches on several marketing tactics popular with brands in recent times.
The “Fros-T-Pain” campaign features the remixed track, available on YouTube and TikTok, together with a full-length music video that features T-Pain within the studio, in front of a Strawberry Frosty-inspired coupe and in a Wendy’s that has been changed into a nightclub. The final shot reveals that the complete video is likely to be in T-Pain’s head, with a Wendy’s worker nodding to the “sir, it is a Wendy’s” meme.
By rewriting “Buy U a Drank” as “Buy U a Frosty,” Wendy’s becomes the most recent brand to collaborate with a musician to show a fan-favorite song right into a brand-ready jingle. General Mills snack brand Chex Mix in January enlisted Sir Mix-A-Lot to remix “Baby Got Back” as “Bagel Is Back,” while Uber’s Super Bowl spot revolved around Sean “Diddy” Combs and artists including Kelis and Montell Jordan remixing their songs to reference its subscription service. In an analogous move, Frito-Lay’s 2022 Super Bowl spot tapped Megan Thee Stallion for a reimagined version of Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It.”
In collaborating with T-Pain, Wendy’s taps into early-aughts nostalgia for a reinvigorated hitmaker who is not any stranger to brand campaigns. Lipton Tea solid the rapper-singer as “Cousin T” in a similarly nostalgia-inspired effort, while Alka-Seltzer had T-Pain rework their “plop, plop, fizz, fizz” slogan as a song and dance challenge on TikTok.
Wendy’s has long keyed in on culture to have interaction with younger, more elusive consumers, popularizing the sarcastic, combative tone that was popular with fast-food chains within the years before the pandemic. The chain has continued to tie-up with pop cultural phenomena, like Adult Swim favorite “Rick and Morty,” and has experimented with emerging channels, including the metaverse and shoppable ads on connected TV.
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