Arby's #MakeMySandwich

Moxie work for Arby's Restaurants | Twitter Activation | September 12-16, 2018

2018 SHORTY AWARD WINNER for Art Direction

GOLD ATLANTA AD CLUB ADDY WINNER for Art Direction - Campaign, Social Media Campaign and Online Campaign

SILVER ATLANTA AD CLUB ADDY WINNER for Social Media Single Execution

A #DrawThisInYourStyle sandwich portrait I made based on Instagram artist @kelseyeng32's original art.

Arby's decided to position themselves as a "Sandwich Shop" in 2018 and introduced H. Jon Benjamin (the voices of both Archer from "Archer" and Bob from "Bob's Burgers") as their new "Head of Sandwiches."

To support the campaign and show off the variety of choices Arby's had on their menu, we were asked to come up with a stunty social campaign that would get press. Arby's had also purchased the @Sandwich handle on Instagram and asked us what type of content would ultimately live there.

Hence, #MakeMySandwich was born. The activation itself lived primarily on Twitter, but we also did a combined Facebook/Instagram Live event and did a special day's worth of content on Instagram Stories.

In order to have a sandwich portrait made, all viewers had to do was tweet, "Hey @Arbys, #MakeMySandwich" during the three days of non-stop sandwich portraits our team participated in. After those first three days, Sandwich Portraits became another medium for us to make regular social posts in as long as Arby's wanted to keep the Head of Sandwiches persona in their TV ads.

This campaign won us a SLEW of awards, so I'm including the writeup we used for one of those awards submissions below. The award I'm most proud of is our Gold in Art Direction at the Shorty Awards in 2019—and not just because I was the Art Director and got to go to New York with two of our clients to attend the awards ceremony and pick it up. I'm proudest of that award because we were against some seriously awesome competition that had much, much bigger budgets than we had. Our small, scrappy team pulled off making "food art" worthy of an Art Direction award.

We made special sandwich portraits of all of the Marketing leads at Arby's and had them printed on melamine plates as a Christmas present.

Later when our sister agency, Zenith, was pitching Arby's media business, Hughston and I were asked to make individual portraits of everyone who would be in the pitch meeting.

All in all, it was a fun campaign. As big of a hit as it was, I was REALLY glad when we were done making portraits all day. We didn't wear gloves while we were crafting, so I came home every day smelling like meat, cheese and toast from all of the times we had to brulee torch the bread.

You can see one of the portraits Hughston made during our live event, as well as some behind-the-scenes shots captured with a GoPro after the case study video and award entry writeup.

The Team

Sandwich Artists - Jennifer Barclay, Scott Hunt & Hughston May

Copywriter - Brandon Kraemer

Photographers - Larissa Erin Greer, Michael Mussman & Kirsten Thieman

What was the business challenge for the client?

Arby’s wanted to own sandwich on social. They sought to refresh their “We Have the Meats” brand message to shift focus towards overall sandwich variety and bring Arby’s to the forefront of the sandwich conversation. The challenge was to disrupt the sandwich conversation on social by driving buzz and engagement in a way that no other QSR had done before.

What was the insight that led to the big idea?

Our most successful social content relied on delivering user requests with a unique aesthetic: papercraft creations made from humble Arby’s packaging materials. If we could find a way to use sandwich ingredients in a similar fashion, the resulting creative would attract attention and encourage follower requests and shares.

What was the strategy provided to address the business challenge?

During the launch of Arby’s new sandwich-centric messaging, Arby’s social media would post a series of “Sandwich Portraits” that leverages a unique hashtag (#MakeMySandwich) and encouraged followers to send in requests and share among friends.

Sandwich Portraits Side-by-Side #7 - Wayne & Garth

Wayne and Garth from "Wayne's World" by Scott Hunt

What was the idea?

Social is full of selfies. Our big idea was to evolve the successful Arby’s packaging papercraft into real-time, quick response, social portraits of celebrities, influencers and symbols from nerd culture, and everyday Arby’s fans. We knew once fans started seeing these sandwich portraits go live, everybody would want one.

How was it executed?

To kick it off, we asked celebrities and friends of the brand to tag @Arbys with seeded requests. We then created portraits using only Arby’s Sandwich ingredients and replied to the user with the finished asset. After the first few went live, sandwich portrait requests started rolling in on Twitter. Over the course of 3 weeks, we made more than 100 fully unique sandwich portraits. These were shared across multiple platforms like Twitter replies, a two-hour FB Live, build-along videos, IG stories, carousels, galleries and more.

How was the execution a modern marketing solution?

We produced over 100 hyper personalized handmade pieces of content for social within hours of brand fans requesting it, what’s more modern marketing than that? The #MakeMySandwich campaign was an authentic way to educate new and potential followers about the client’s sandwich variety while upholding the look, feel, voice, and tone Arby’s is known for on social and avoiding an overt, off-putting product message.

Izuku Midoriya from "My Hero Academia" by Scott Hunt

What key metrics illustrate the program’s success?

100+ Sandwich Portraits
12 MM Twitter Imp.
11 MM Facebook Imp.
5 MM Instagram Imp.
32K Hashtag Mentions
99% Positive Sentiment

How did you measure effectiveness of the campaign?

Street cred. Wendy’s, one of Arby’s key market competitors, asked for a sandwich and we delivered (but with an Arby’s hat of course) to the delight of fans all over social.

How did it move your client forward and drive growth?

This campaign not only ushered Arby’s to the forefront of the sandwich conversation, but also drove 1:1, personalized communications with their most loyal fans in an authentic way. Arby’s wanted to own sandwich on social and that’s exactly what we did.