Arby’s Beefs Up Its Branding, Drills Down to Core Messaging

Adweek recently broke down the resurgence of Arby's as a successful brand thanks to a renewed focus on branding and their core messaging. Writer Katie Richards writes, "The brand's turning point arrived about two years ago. It was either going to crash and burn or rise to the challenge of its teetering brand. The difficulty was figuring out what made the brand special and what it stood for. The team came to a consensus on what was at the core of the Arby's brand: meat. From there, Lynch helped carve out a new industry category specific to Arby's, which he calls Fast Crafted."

The tone of these TV spots--with voiceover provided by actor Ving Rhames--is humorous and easygoing. Arby's has allowed this new focus on the meats and being a relatable brand has spilled into their digital efforts, too. Besides racking up tons of views on their Arby's YouTube channel for their clever commercials, they're dedicated to using conversational language that sounds (gasp!) like a real human talking, like this Facebook post:

Branding

Of course, having a drool-worthy picture is crucial, and Arby's is really pushing their #SmokehouseBrisket by pinning this image to the top, using a dedicated hashtag, and sharing the long cook time which insinuates tender, smokey flavor.

Over on Twitter, they show off their famous curly fries and are channel-specific, referring directly to Twitter's limited character count in this post:

Twitter marketing

On Instagram, timeliness prevails with Halloween and Fall-inspired photos, like this one:

Social Media marketing

One area they are dropping the digital marketing ball is Pinterest. They only have 13 boards--many not even having 4 pins, which should really be the bare minimum a board features since the main cover image of the board is accompanied by 3 smaller thumbnails underneath, which are currently empty. The are also only pinning stock-like images of their individual menu items without any context i.e. tailgating, picnicking, etc.

Pinterest marketing

Overall, Arby's efforts have helped bring back the struggling brand from the brink of extinction after nearly 50 years of neglecting to focus on their differentiator..."We Have the Meats"™. As Adweek reports, "Taking risks and having fun with its marketing has paid off tremendously for Arby's in the last two years. Today, 50 percent of its customers are under the age of 35. It's also paid off in the boosted sales, though Lynch says he's more excited about getting more feet through the doors and more conversations started online. 'It's not just about sales. We're driving transactions, which in our industry is hard to come by, and I think we're just getting started,'" said Robert Lynch, Arby's CMO.

Is it time to refresh your brand? If so, contact us today so we can help breathe new life into your brand.

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