Burger King asked Wendy’s to prom over Twitter and garnered attention that would have otherwise cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing spend.
On Wednesday, a Burger King restaurant in Boston, Massachusetts changed its sign, playfully asking the neighboring Wendy’s restaurant to prom. The official Burger King account posted a photo on Twitter and waited for a response as social media reacted with supportive messages.
— Burger King (@BurgerKing) May 9, 2018
Wendy’s responded within the hour, accepting in the brand’s trademark sarcastic tone. “Ok, but don’t get handsy and we have to be home by 10,” wrote Wendy’s.
Ok, but don’t get handsy and we have to be home by 10. https://t.co/tQunlsqecG
— Wendy’s (@Wendys) May 9, 2018
Burger King changed its sign to say “She said yes!” and posted a picture with a rose inside a burger box—its own fast food corsiage.
.@wendys looking forward to it. let’s aim for king and queen of prom. 🤴👸 pic.twitter.com/KMBktLPLfl
— Burger King (@BurgerKing) May 9, 2018
To measure user engagement with Burger King’s “promposal”, we calculated the earned media value from Burger King’s initial request, Wendy’s acceptance tweet and Burger King’s response on Twitter from May 9-10.
“Earned media” is the value of engagements a brand receives across channels as a result of their marketing efforts. To help quantify what the value of those engagements is worth, Ayzenberg Group established the Ayzenberg Earned Media Value Index (AEMVI) and assigned a quantifiable dollar amount for marketing gains a brand receives from a campaign or individual engagement that includes social media networks and similar digital properties.
(Editor’s note: AListDaily is the publishing arm of Ayzenberg Group. To read the updated AEMVI report reflecting the rapid changes in social, click here.)
Based on the latest AEMVI rates for Twitter interactions, Burger King’s “promposal” earned a total of $260,696 in earned media value. This figure was based on values assigned to likes, comments and retweets.
Like a prom king and queen, Burger King and Wendy’s shared the spotlight—in this case, the earned media value—when Wendy’s accepted. Wendy’s quote retweet earned a majority of the earned media value: $113,133.54 in likes, $5,610 in comments and $121,391.97 in retweets for a total of $240,135.51.
Burger King and Wendy’s haven’t always gotten along on Twitter. In October, Burger King promoted user tweets that complained when Wendy’s took spicy nuggets off the menu.
For now, the two brands are playing nice for prom season, to which Moon Pie responded, “I knew I should have asked sooner.”