March 30, 2024 • 28 mins
We turn our TV dials back four decades to analyze an iconic fast-food commercial featuring big fluffy buns and a spunky senior citizen asking one of the most important questions of our time.
Get show notes for this episode and check out past episodes of the Speaking Human podcast by visiting speakinghuman.com.
#Podcast #SpeakingHuman #VO #Branding #Marketing #Advertising #Business #Punctuation #Brands #Ads #simplify #popculture #Wendys #WheresTheBeef #Beef
Get show notes for this episode and check out past episodes of the Speaking Human podcast by visiting speakinghuman.com.
#Podcast #SpeakingHuman #VO #Branding #Marketing #Advertising #Business #Punctuation #Brands #Ads #simplify #popculture #Wendys #WheresTheBeef #Beef
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Specking Human. Today, on SpeakingHuman, we turn our TV dials back
four decades to analyze an iconic fastfood commercial featuring big, fluffy buns and
a spunky senior citizen asking one ofthe most important questions of our time.
(00:24):
Speaking Human. Welcome to Speaking Human, where we simplify the world of marketing
for humans. I'm Shad Calmly andwith me as my co host, Patrick
Jebber. Patrick, when's the lasttime you ate a fast food burger?
(00:48):
Well, if you don't count fiveguys burgers and fries, do you count
that? I count that. Yeah, it's fast food. Okay, Well,
then I would probably say six monthsago. I thought you were going
to say this afternoon, this afternoon, maybe three to six months ago.
It's somewhere in that range. Butif you say that's not included, I
(01:08):
would say at least five years agofor anything else. Wow. Yeah,
and maybe more like ten if I'mreally being honest, because five years ago
the pandemic started almost or four yearsago, four years ago. It could
be ten years since I've had likea McDonald's hamburger. Yeah, I mean
it's been a long time. You'retalking like a decade. Yeah, I'd
(01:30):
say, how about you. You'vehit a since you hit an old Patty?
Ah, not that long, Ilike you. Probably the last one
I had was probably a five guys, and that was probably somewhere in the
three to five month range. Idon't have them a lot, but every
once in a while. You know, my kids, they're of the age
where they love McDonald's. Yeah,so when we're driving on a long trip,
(01:52):
inevitably I'll we'll stop at McDonald's andI'll have to get something and I'll
usually grab like a big Mac.So that happens a couple times a year.
So within the past year, I'veprobably gotten McDonald's Hamburger. Is that
your preferred McDonald's burger is a bigMac? Yeah. If I'm getting a
burger for McDonald's, I'm usually gettingthe big Mac. I like the special
sauce. Oh yeah, oh yeah, it's exotic, so I enjoy it.
(02:16):
I did always like that one whenI was younger. Or the quarter
pounder. It's a debate which one'sbetter. Quarter pounder, you know,
you get a little more beef tobun ratio is a little better, but
you lose a special sauce. Yeah, Burger King or McDonald's. Which one
do I favor? I you know, I was always more of a Burger
(02:37):
King guy. I actually worked atBurger King in high school. You did.
I did not know that, No, you didn't. That was one
of my first like jobs, otherthan being a paper boy. That was
like my first job was I dida stint at Burger King, a stint
like it was prison kind of.So I used to like their chicken sandwiches.
(03:00):
Oh yeah, Yeah, they havereally good chicken sandwiches, those long
ones. Yeah, they've changed them. They're not the same. The show
Beef on Netflix, they actually makea reference to the original chicken sandwich because
there's like only one place in theshow and the guy drives really far to
get that chicken sandwich. Yeah.They do a good show and a very
appropriate for this episode. But yeah, so I was always more of a
(03:23):
Burger King guy. Nowadays, though, I don't know. Ever since they
I found out the chicken sandwiches weren'tthe same when I went to go get
one. Now I might lean alittle more toward McDonald's. What about you,
where are your loyalties live when itcomes to fast food? I'd say
I'm probably with you. I dolike the chargrilled taste though of the burgers,
(03:44):
you know, so I sort oflean that way generally speaking. You
know, a whopper from Burger Kingis really good. But like I said,
when I was younger, I reallyliked quarter pounder, a big maxim
like that. What about so wegot McDonald's and Burger King, you know,
your big three McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's. What happens when we
throw Wendy's in the mix? Howare you ranking them? Now? That's
a really really great question. Ifeel like Wendy's has generally always been the
(04:11):
red headed stepchild in the burger worldliterally literally in the you know, in
this case. But I always likedWendy's as a kid. My dad and
I would go to Wendy's pretty regularly. And there's something oddly like therapeutic about
eating a square burger. I don'tknow what it is. Maybe it's just
(04:31):
the nostalgia of my childhood with youknow, hanging out with my dad and
we would sit in the Wendy's,the restaurant inside, and this was on
a main road, and we wouldplay I Spy and we would like count
the color of the different colored carsand we'd be like, you know,
try to get as many as youcould of the red car for example.
(04:54):
And that, to me is mymemory of Wendy's. It's interesting how you
connect these things, Like I kindof think of Wendy's too as like that
was the one that was closest tomy house when I could ride a bike,
so that was a lot of timeswhere I would eat the most.
So in a lot of ways,you know, Wendy's might might be the
top for me in some ways evennow. I mean, if I had
(05:15):
to pick between the three, Imight pick Wendy's. I don't know,
you know, it's choosing between thingsI don't like all that much. There
might be the best one depending onwhat I'm in the mood for. They
have a kind of a different manuthat do stand out from the others.
Though, whereas Burger King McDonald's arevery similar, Wendy's is a little different.
Yeah. Also, I met DaveThomas. Time you met the founder
(05:38):
of Wendy's. Yeah, I methim. I used to work at a
golf course in n Akron and FirestoneCountry Club if anybody knows where that is.
They used to have the World Seriesof golf there every year. Anyway,
I worked there and it was avery high end golf club, and
he would come in. He wasa member. I was a runner,
they called him runners. I wouldrun back and forth from different parts of
(06:00):
the course. And he came inand he actually gave me a Wendy's pen.
He had a pen on him becausemembers weren't allowed to leave tips,
but he always left tips, likecash tips. He sort of broke the
rules. He was a super niceguy. But I met Dave Thomas.
I always felt like I was alittle bit closer to Wendy's because of that.
(06:24):
Yeah, definitely, That's man somebig revelations on today's show. Already
we're just getting into it and alreadyhis huge details. You knew, so
you're a little skewed on whatever wetalked about because you're best friends with the
founder of Wendy's. Yeah. Yeah, I always knew they had more beef.
(06:44):
So Wendy's is interesting. I don'tthink, you know. I know,
over the years, we've talked probablya ton about McDonald's and Burger King
or they've come up a lot.Wendy's not quite as much, though we
did name them. One of thewittiest Twitter brands way back on episode one
oh four for all you record keepersout there, But I think in general,
if you weighed the mentions over theyears, Wendy's would probably be trailing
(07:10):
pretty far in third compared to BurgerKing and McDonald's, don't you think.
Yeah, I don't know why thatis, but it does definitely trail behind
the other two. Yeah. Idon't know why that is either. I
was actually even surprised when I sawthat Wendy's is actually like the number two
burger chain in the US. It'snot Burger King. I thought it was
Burger King, but when you lookat sales, it's actually McDonald's, Wendy's
(07:34):
then Burger King. That to mewas like, I would not have expected
that. I think that's one ofthose things because when we grew up,
McDonald's and Burger King were always fightingeach other. It's like coke and PEPSI
yeah, and so probably in yourhead you think, of course, because
of the top two, but youwouldn't ever think that the Wendy's, the
(07:55):
little pigtail girl, sneaky little Wendy. Yeah, she's in there. She's
just clobren Burger King the King.That's how they get you. So when
I mentioned the name Wendy's, whatea of the first three things that come
to your mind, Let's see howyours. You know, we'll both do
this and we'll see how yours comparewith mine? Okay, So I would
(08:16):
say square burgers, Frosty's, andI think the third thing would be the
logo. I think the Wendy's logois in my head, just stands out
to me. Ah, so weoverlap on Frosty's. Okay, that definitely
popped out to me. I thinkthat's the signature Wendy's item, right yeah,
(08:39):
well yeah. Other than really,the other thing that makes them stand
out like in the burger world isthe fact that they're square burgers. I
mean, there's no doubt that thatis. I never even think about them
being square. I know that's athing, but I don't really when I
go to Wendy's, I'm never like, ah, it's square. I think
that's a very strange element because ifyou really think about it, your mind
has been trained to think of aburger's round. Yeah, they're never square.
(09:03):
Yeah. So it's the only burgerchain that does that, you know.
So to me, it's so uniquethat it of course comes top of
mind when you ask me and belike, yeah, Square Burgers. But
anyway, so what were you othertwo then? So then my other two
one was something you mentioned your palDave Thomas, And this, you know,
(09:24):
probably ages me to some extent,but you know, because he died
in early two thousands, but hewas always on the Wendy's commercials back in
I don't know what was it,eighties nineties. He was like the face
of Wendy's, more so than Wendyon the logo. You know, he
was the guy who was out infront, yeah, kind of promoting it.
So that's he obviously, I juststill associate him with Wendy's. I
(09:48):
don't know what that says about theircommercial marketing now that I still he's still
in my mind. And then thethird thing another menu item. This is
probably pretty personal, but the JuniorBacon Burger, always a favorite at ninety
nine cents. Used to grab acouple of these puppies. Do they still
have them? Yes, they do, in case anyone's wondering. But that's
(10:09):
the other one. So tell thelistener, sad, why are we really
here today? Besides talking about ourold jobs, which I've I'm sure everyone
finds fascinating. I mean, that'sthat's why people tune in. We're here
to talk about one of the biggest, most iconic marketing campaigns of all time,
(10:31):
a flashback classic. On today's episode, we're talking about the famous Where's
the beefad from Wendy's, which littleknown fact is actually titled Fluffy Bun.
Fluffy Bun is the name of thatACD. I was surprised to learn that.
I'm shocked to learn that. Yeah, this ad just celebrated its fortieth
(10:54):
birthday, so we thought it wouldbe a good time to look back on
it and if we can pinpoint whatmade this ad such a cultural phenomenon.
Yeah, Well, for the listenersout there who are trying to either recall
this ad as we're talking about it, or want to listen to the episode
(11:15):
and then go to us speaking human, Do you want to see the ad?
You could go to Speaking Human,you could see it right now.
But to paint a picture of thead for everyone, here's a brief description
of what goes down in the FluffyBun ad. All Right, So,
the ad, which aired for thefirst time in January of nineteen eighty four.
(11:39):
So I'm setting the picture for youright now by giving you the year
it came out. That should tellyou something, okay, because it does
have that quality of nineteen eighty four. Came out during the Super Bowl and
features three elderly women at a genericif you want to call a generic fast
(12:01):
food restaurant with a sign hanging upthat says home of the Big Bun.
So they stare at this huge bunwith a tiny patty on it, and
it prompts the one woman to angrilyask where's the beef? Right? And
then the narrator of the commercial breaksin to tell us, at Wendy's,
(12:26):
we save a hamburger, we modestlycall the single, and Wendy's single has
more beef than the Whooper or BigMac. At Wendy'd you get more beef
and less bun. And the rest, as they say, is history.
It's a nice little little nugget there. So let's talk about this, Chad,
What do you think? Where's thebeef? What are your thoughts on
this aid aka fluffy bun? Fluffybun? Uh? Yeah, let's just
(12:48):
you know, start pretty generally here. Thoughts on this ad, you know,
will kind of go through whether welike it, dislike it, Does
it work, does it not work? What do we think when we're doing
a dive like this, when we'regoing back on something. You got to
watch it like ten times and reallythink about it beyond the surface, because
you know the you know the gistof it, right, it's you've heard
(13:11):
it over and over, but youkind of like you want to see it
in a different way. So lookingat this again, I you know,
I really like the concept. Themeat so to speak of the ad is
very strong. The visual. Itcreates a visual, right, It doesn't
just point out a benefit of Wendy'sburgers. It shows you you get this
exaggerated visual of the competition that emphasizesthe disparity. So giant bun tiny burger
(13:37):
that kind of is burned into yourbrain. That's pretty good. Makes some
bold statement and it names names right. The narrator directly says the Wendy's single
has more beef than the whopper orbig mac boom. Those are fighting words
right there. That's a big deal. A lot of times people would shy
away from actually like saying the namesof the competitor. This one doesn't.
(14:01):
It's like, this is bigger thanthose ones. Mine are bigger than yours.
Right, Yeah, that's that's bold. And the third thing, it
creates a challenge. There's a book, a great marketing book called Made to
Stick, probably one of the bestmarketing books out there, I think,
which notes when when these established credibilityby essentially challenging consumers to try the burgers
(14:26):
and see for yourself. You know, that's kind of what this ad did.
The way it was establishing credibility wassaying, here, here's what we're
telling you. You don't have totake our word for it. Go get
these burgers and see ours is bigger. You're gonna get more with ours.
Those are things I think about thead that works really well. What do
you think about the ad? Imean, I like it obviously, I
(14:46):
think it works. And the thingabout this ad is all the things that
you said absolutely true. Really,these old ladies became synonymous with the Where's
the beef? But they made itcomical. Something about this time period,
and these old ladies worked, right. I feel like any other decade they
probably wouldn't even have worked that timeperiod. And the elderly component, for
(15:11):
some reason, just clicked on thisad and like elevated it. Do you
think it holds up today or isit a relic? I think, you
know, there's a timelessness to theslogan. I do think that the ad
itself, the delivery, is verymuch of its time. Yeah. You
know, when I even look atthis initial ad, I really get distracted
(15:33):
by the background, the fast foodbackground of the ad. I'm like,
is that cubicles? Is it atic tac toe board? It's just the
background design seems so odd to me. I find it's super distracting now.
I don't know, maybe that's whatfast food restaurants looked like at that time,
but I find it now it justlooks very strange and cheap to me.
(15:54):
So that's one thing that I thinkis very comes off very dated.
The other thing is is this generalidea of characters delivering slogans mm hmm was
such an eighties nineties thing, youknow what I mean. We had this
on TV and both like shows andcommercials all the time. I think of
like Herkle and Alf, and youknow, that's one spicy beatball. We
(16:18):
just ate this stuff up In theeighties and nineties, We're like give me
more of that, give me likea colorful character say in a line that
I can repeat over and over.That stuff just does not fly today,
you know what I mean. Nobody'slike I want that. Everybody's like that
just seems so fake and forced.But at that time, we were like,
this is the best, this isgreat. I can't wait to repeat
(16:41):
what this person is saying over andover again. This ad kind of dines
on that in a lot of ways. Yeah slogans, then people would repeat
and reiterate over and over again,whereas now, like if the business has
a slogan, you might remember thatslogan, but you're not like out there
hanging with your friend being like,where's the beef? You know? But
(17:04):
you know, this ad was verypopular. If we had a popularity contest
of that time period, I thinkthis ad would definitely be in the winner's
bracket. Why do you think itcaught on? Well, I think one
of the things is something you touchedon, right, And I think it's
the Old Lady, the old ladies, but specifically the old lady who was
(17:26):
Clara Peller, the eighty one yearold woman who starred in this ad.
Yeah, who became like a celebrityoff of this. They said they tried
to film the ad with some likea middle aged couple and it was like
a like a bald man delivering theline, and they knew it just didn't
work. And then they put thislady in there, and you know,
it was kind of a whole differentflavor. And I think that's you know,
(17:48):
I talked about these things. Youknow, the message is strong,
sure, the slogan's catchy, yes, but this is like, you know
how you need that extra bit ofmagic to kind of take something up a
notch. That's kind of what didit. It's like, Ah, she's
so cute. You know, she'sfunny, she's old, she's she's delivering
this line and she just becomes,you know, this this cultural character.
She's on SNL, she's wrestle Maniathere bringing her into and you know,
(18:11):
this takes it to another level.The other thing is the slogan itself then
goes kind of into the cultural lexicon. It no longer is just about Wendy's
Burgers, right, It transcends thatstarts to mean where is the substance in
that? Where's the beef? Itwas mentioned during the nineteen eighty four presidential
election. You know, the Democratichopeful Walter Mondale used it to suggest a
(18:36):
lack of substance by his arrival.People wore T shirts, they put it
on bumper stickers. It becomes youknow, it goes to that next level
where people are using it not justto talk about this ad to put in
now terms. It got meaned,but there was a much longer tail to
those things back then. Yeah,I agree with all that. I here's
the other thing. I'm just gonnathrow it out there and see what you
(18:59):
think of. This was nineteen eightyfour, right, a big year I
think across the board. But nineteeneighty four SHAD was just before nineteen eighty
five. And why you might say, well, obviously it's one year before
makes sense. Yeah, do youknow what took place in nineteen eighty five?
(19:19):
Back to the future. Ooh,I knew you were going to say
that. I knew you were goingto say that, did you? I
did? But the right answer isthe Golden Girls. The Golden Girls came
out that following year. And thereason why I bring this up is there's
no relationship, really like, there'sno connection. Nothing about this ad is
(19:41):
connected to the Golden girls. Butif you look at it, that show
ran from eighty five to ninety two, super popular, the comedy teaching us
a thing or two about life.It was this decade. It was an
era of the elderly era of oldladies really was coming into fruition. And
(20:03):
these little old ladies inside of thisgeneric fast food chain looking at this burger
was the same thing. And wewere like just soaking it in, like,
oh, these little ladies are teachingme about the proper ratio of hamburger
to bun. No. No,that's a really good point. And I
you know, maybe even another componentto that is even being able to see
(20:27):
older people being funny. Mm hmm. You know, I don't know how
much you actually were seeing that previousto that time in film, TV things
like that, you know, likethese old ladies coming there and like with
their kind of comic chops, seeingthis like different side to them, this
human side, which I don't evenknow that you saw. When I think
(20:47):
about like grandparents or older people inmy family, you saw that that much.
You know, you were supposed tohold a position of respect or something
like different than that, So likeshowing this funny side and stuff like that,
those things coming across, you know, up to like ten years ago,
this idea of Betty White swearing onthings, you know, people were
like it was very endearing in adifferent side of like the elderly persona that
(21:12):
we didn't necessarily think of. Andwhen you had that out there and you
put that in ads and kind ofTV shows, people were like, oh,
this is like another way of seeingthe elderly that I wasn't necessarily seeing
before. Yeah, and I thinkthat that fluffy bun commercial was sort of
the lead into that. Maybe oneled to the other, Maybe there is
(21:33):
a connection. I think that thatdecade definitely lent itself to being able to
absorb it in a different way thanmaybe any other decade. Yeah, that's
a really interesting note. Somebody coulddo a whole analysis. You know,
there's a student who could spend timejust looking at elderly representation in like the
seventies to nineties and see what thatlooks like. Yeah, let's see the
(21:57):
trajectory. Yeah, yeah, howthat kind of like changed over time and
how a key pin in that wholestory is where's the beef? Interesting kind
of sad note to that whole thing, though, is Clara Peller. Though,
the woman who was in this adbecomes famous off of Where's the Beef
(22:18):
then appears in a Prago commercial thatplays off of Where's the Beef Wendy's cancer.
She gets fired fired her after that, So you know, to kind
of wrap things up here, Lookingat this ad amidst all the other great
ads out there, do you thinkit deserves a place in the advertising Hall
of Fame? That's part one ofthe questions. Part two. Is this
(22:41):
the best fast food commercial ever made? I would say yes? And is
this the best fast food commercial?Yes? I would say so. Is
there another one? I don't know, maybe, but I can't think of
it. I mean, I haveto agree. When I was trying to
think about it, the only otherones that come close that I could think
(23:03):
of were the McDonald's ones where itwas like Michael Jordan versus Larry Bird.
That was a pretty famous one,and that's okay. Or then Taco Bell
the dog Yo Kiero Taco Bell prettyfamous. The other ones I think of
are mostly jingles. I think oflike Burger Kings have it your Way.
I couldn't really think of a greatcommercial to go with it, like Arby's.
(23:25):
We have the meats, but Ican't think of a great singular commercial
to go with it. That's kindof the reason why I think it's the
best. It's a singular commercial,and it created the slogan, It created
the tagline, where's the beef?It's super, super simple, like even
Arby's We've got the meats, whichis I would say, probably as close
(23:48):
to that as you could get.Yeah, required consistency, uniformity, and
repetition over and over and over againfor you to remember that and stick with
you forever. Now. Yeah,but as a singular entity, this would
be it. And I do likeYokiera Taco Bell, but that also,
(24:10):
I would argue, took repetition too, and I think that's faded with time
too. The fact that you mentionedit, I bet you most people have
never even heard of that, youngpeople specially. That's when we think about
the advertising Hall of Fame. Ithink one significant thing is forty years later,
we're still talking about this ad.Forty years later, I think we
can still find people young people wholike know this slogan, even if they
(24:33):
don't know exactly what Branda came from. Yeah, you know, you might
even be hard pressed to find Yo, Kiera Taco Bell people. Now,
you know, younger people who weren'taround when that was aired, you know
what that is. Yeah, otherthan it says Taco Bell, it does
have the name. Yeah, soit's got that going for it, and
they get points far. It's justlike when you know, we were talking
(24:55):
about the movie titles before and someonesays the movie title in the movie,
you get points. But yeah,every time. And I think the best
case for the advertising Hall of Famebeyond you know history. It's got history.
So that's that's the number one keyI think too. But in its
time, I gotta throw these numbersout there real quick because I think they're
(25:15):
just kind of pretty wild. Twomonths after the commercial aired, forty seven
percent of customers believe that Wendy's singlewas bigger than the Big Mac or Whopper,
and during the first year the adsran, Wendy's revenue increased by thirty
one percent. It's pretty crazy froma commercial. Yeah, it made them
the number two Burger fast food chain. I mean, I don't know if
(25:37):
it happened then, but obviously itmade them a player. I'm gonna go
out and limb and say it didhappen right then. I don't have any
proof, but I'm gonna say ithappened. You know, we talk about
Burger King and McDonald's as the twobigs going at each other, and then
you got Wendy's, who steps inthe ring. Nobody's really paying attention.
It's just like a knockout punch toboth of them, right. I wonder
(25:57):
if Wendy's burgers are still bigger.You don't here mention that anymore, so
I feel like they must have correctedthat problem. I mean, isn't that
sort of subjective? I mean,it could be bigger in one circumstance and
not in another. It's just likesaying, did my burger that I ever
ordered from a fast food place looklike the one that was pictured on the
(26:19):
menu behind the counter? Never?Not one time? Yeah, but you
could probably get a sample of onehundred burgers from each place and weigh them,
and if you know, they're fifteenpercent bigger ninety percent of the time.
True. True, My argument stillholds true. Have you ever had
a sandwich from a fast food placethat looks like the menu item, the
(26:41):
picture and the menu item behind thecounter. No, here's a better question.
Have you ever read two of thesame fast food items that looked the
same. Oh no, sitting rightnext to each other. No. Yeah,
yeah, made by the same personat the same time. Other than
when I'm we made the whoppers andthey were perfect. You were the quintessential
(27:06):
whopper maker. Yeah. I hada reputation to a pold. People were
like, we need that guy onour team, and You're like, I'm
sorry, I'm going on to dobigger and better things. I'll see you.
That's when I went to work atthe Italian Oven, did you Yeah,
that was the heyday of restaurants hiringany dope off the streets. It
(27:27):
was the beginnings. It taught youabout customer service, taught you about quality
performance, and you know, toppings. M m yeah, pickles onions.
Let us pickles onions, putting afrozen patty on a conveyor belt and watching
it come out at the other enddripping of grease. But it was char
(27:48):
brawl grease. So it was goodfor you. Yeah, yeah, you
know. All right, Well,I think we covered a lot about the
beef today. Hopefully you got somethingout of that. And that's it for
today's episode. You can find currentand past episodes, including the commercial we
talked about today on Speaking human dotcom. We'll be back in forty years
(28:11):
with another episode of Speaking Human.Catch you then Humans Speaking Human
Specking Human. Today, on SpeakingHuman, we turn our TV dials back
four decades to analyze an iconic fastfood commercial featuring big, fluffy buns and
a spunky senior citizen asking one ofthe most important questions of our time.
(00:24):
Speaking Human. Welcome to Speaking Human, where we simplify the world of marketing
for humans. I'm Shad Calmly andwith me as my co host, Patrick
Jebber. Patrick, when's the lasttime you ate a fast food burger?
(00:48):
Well, if you don't count fiveguys burgers and fries, do you count
that? I count that. Yeah, it's fast food. Okay, Well,
then I would probably say six monthsago. I thought you were going
to say this afternoon, this afternoon, maybe three to six months ago.
It's somewhere in that range. Butif you say that's not included, I
(01:08):
would say at least five years agofor anything else. Wow. Yeah,
and maybe more like ten if I'mreally being honest, because five years ago
the pandemic started almost or four yearsago, four years ago. It could
be ten years since I've had likea McDonald's hamburger. Yeah, I mean
it's been a long time. You'retalking like a decade. Yeah, I'd
(01:30):
say, how about you. You'vehit a since you hit an old Patty?
Ah, not that long, Ilike you. Probably the last one
I had was probably a five guys, and that was probably somewhere in the
three to five month range. Idon't have them a lot, but every
once in a while. You know, my kids, they're of the age
where they love McDonald's. Yeah,so when we're driving on a long trip,
(01:52):
inevitably I'll we'll stop at McDonald's andI'll have to get something and I'll
usually grab like a big Mac.So that happens a couple times a year.
So within the past year, I'veprobably gotten McDonald's Hamburger. Is that
your preferred McDonald's burger is a bigMac? Yeah. If I'm getting a
burger for McDonald's, I'm usually gettingthe big Mac. I like the special
sauce. Oh yeah, oh yeah, it's exotic, so I enjoy it.
(02:16):
I did always like that one whenI was younger. Or the quarter
pounder. It's a debate which one'sbetter. Quarter pounder, you know,
you get a little more beef tobun ratio is a little better, but
you lose a special sauce. Yeah, Burger King or McDonald's. Which one
do I favor? I you know, I was always more of a Burger
(02:37):
King guy. I actually worked atBurger King in high school. You did.
I did not know that, No, you didn't. That was one
of my first like jobs, otherthan being a paper boy. That was
like my first job was I dida stint at Burger King, a stint
like it was prison kind of.So I used to like their chicken sandwiches.
(03:00):
Oh yeah, Yeah, they havereally good chicken sandwiches, those long
ones. Yeah, they've changed them. They're not the same. The show
Beef on Netflix, they actually makea reference to the original chicken sandwich because
there's like only one place in theshow and the guy drives really far to
get that chicken sandwich. Yeah.They do a good show and a very
appropriate for this episode. But yeah, so I was always more of a
(03:23):
Burger King guy. Nowadays, though, I don't know. Ever since they
I found out the chicken sandwiches weren'tthe same when I went to go get
one. Now I might lean alittle more toward McDonald's. What about you,
where are your loyalties live when itcomes to fast food? I'd say
I'm probably with you. I dolike the chargrilled taste though of the burgers,
(03:44):
you know, so I sort oflean that way generally speaking. You
know, a whopper from Burger Kingis really good. But like I said,
when I was younger, I reallyliked quarter pounder, a big maxim
like that. What about so wegot McDonald's and Burger King, you know,
your big three McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's. What happens when we
throw Wendy's in the mix? Howare you ranking them? Now? That's
a really really great question. Ifeel like Wendy's has generally always been the
(04:11):
red headed stepchild in the burger worldliterally literally in the you know, in
this case. But I always likedWendy's as a kid. My dad and
I would go to Wendy's pretty regularly. And there's something oddly like therapeutic about
eating a square burger. I don'tknow what it is. Maybe it's just
(04:31):
the nostalgia of my childhood with youknow, hanging out with my dad and
we would sit in the Wendy's,the restaurant inside, and this was on
a main road, and we wouldplay I Spy and we would like count
the color of the different colored carsand we'd be like, you know,
try to get as many as youcould of the red car for example.
(04:54):
And that, to me is mymemory of Wendy's. It's interesting how you
connect these things, Like I kindof think of Wendy's too as like that
was the one that was closest tomy house when I could ride a bike,
so that was a lot of timeswhere I would eat the most.
So in a lot of ways,you know, Wendy's might might be the
top for me in some ways evennow. I mean, if I had
(05:15):
to pick between the three, Imight pick Wendy's. I don't know,
you know, it's choosing between thingsI don't like all that much. There
might be the best one depending onwhat I'm in the mood for. They
have a kind of a different manuthat do stand out from the others.
Though, whereas Burger King McDonald's arevery similar, Wendy's is a little different.
Yeah. Also, I met DaveThomas. Time you met the founder
(05:38):
of Wendy's. Yeah, I methim. I used to work at a
golf course in n Akron and FirestoneCountry Club if anybody knows where that is.
They used to have the World Seriesof golf there every year. Anyway,
I worked there and it was avery high end golf club, and
he would come in. He wasa member. I was a runner,
they called him runners. I wouldrun back and forth from different parts of
(06:00):
the course. And he came inand he actually gave me a Wendy's pen.
He had a pen on him becausemembers weren't allowed to leave tips,
but he always left tips, likecash tips. He sort of broke the
rules. He was a super niceguy. But I met Dave Thomas.
I always felt like I was alittle bit closer to Wendy's because of that.
(06:24):
Yeah, definitely, That's man somebig revelations on today's show. Already
we're just getting into it and alreadyhis huge details. You knew, so
you're a little skewed on whatever wetalked about because you're best friends with the
founder of Wendy's. Yeah. Yeah, I always knew they had more beef.
(06:44):
So Wendy's is interesting. I don'tthink, you know. I know,
over the years, we've talked probablya ton about McDonald's and Burger King
or they've come up a lot.Wendy's not quite as much, though we
did name them. One of thewittiest Twitter brands way back on episode one
oh four for all you record keepersout there, But I think in general,
if you weighed the mentions over theyears, Wendy's would probably be trailing
(07:10):
pretty far in third compared to BurgerKing and McDonald's, don't you think.
Yeah, I don't know why thatis, but it does definitely trail behind
the other two. Yeah. Idon't know why that is either. I
was actually even surprised when I sawthat Wendy's is actually like the number two
burger chain in the US. It'snot Burger King. I thought it was
Burger King, but when you lookat sales, it's actually McDonald's, Wendy's
(07:34):
then Burger King. That to mewas like, I would not have expected
that. I think that's one ofthose things because when we grew up,
McDonald's and Burger King were always fightingeach other. It's like coke and PEPSI
yeah, and so probably in yourhead you think, of course, because
of the top two, but youwouldn't ever think that the Wendy's, the
(07:55):
little pigtail girl, sneaky little Wendy. Yeah, she's in there. She's
just clobren Burger King the King.That's how they get you. So when
I mentioned the name Wendy's, whatea of the first three things that come
to your mind, Let's see howyours. You know, we'll both do
this and we'll see how yours comparewith mine? Okay, So I would
(08:16):
say square burgers, Frosty's, andI think the third thing would be the
logo. I think the Wendy's logois in my head, just stands out
to me. Ah, so weoverlap on Frosty's. Okay, that definitely
popped out to me. I thinkthat's the signature Wendy's item, right yeah,
(08:39):
well yeah. Other than really,the other thing that makes them stand
out like in the burger world isthe fact that they're square burgers. I
mean, there's no doubt that thatis. I never even think about them
being square. I know that's athing, but I don't really when I
go to Wendy's, I'm never like, ah, it's square. I think
that's a very strange element because ifyou really think about it, your mind
has been trained to think of aburger's round. Yeah, they're never square.
(09:03):
Yeah. So it's the only burgerchain that does that, you know.
So to me, it's so uniquethat it of course comes top of
mind when you ask me and belike, yeah, Square Burgers. But
anyway, so what were you othertwo then? So then my other two
one was something you mentioned your palDave Thomas, And this, you know,
(09:24):
probably ages me to some extent,but you know, because he died
in early two thousands, but hewas always on the Wendy's commercials back in
I don't know what was it,eighties nineties. He was like the face
of Wendy's, more so than Wendyon the logo. You know, he
was the guy who was out infront, yeah, kind of promoting it.
So that's he obviously, I juststill associate him with Wendy's. I
(09:48):
don't know what that says about theircommercial marketing now that I still he's still
in my mind. And then thethird thing another menu item. This is
probably pretty personal, but the JuniorBacon Burger, always a favorite at ninety
nine cents. Used to grab acouple of these puppies. Do they still
have them? Yes, they do, in case anyone's wondering. But that's
(10:09):
the other one. So tell thelistener, sad, why are we really
here today? Besides talking about ourold jobs, which I've I'm sure everyone
finds fascinating. I mean, that'sthat's why people tune in. We're here
to talk about one of the biggest, most iconic marketing campaigns of all time,
(10:31):
a flashback classic. On today's episode, we're talking about the famous Where's
the beefad from Wendy's, which littleknown fact is actually titled Fluffy Bun.
Fluffy Bun is the name of thatACD. I was surprised to learn that.
I'm shocked to learn that. Yeah, this ad just celebrated its fortieth
(10:54):
birthday, so we thought it wouldbe a good time to look back on
it and if we can pinpoint whatmade this ad such a cultural phenomenon.
Yeah, Well, for the listenersout there who are trying to either recall
this ad as we're talking about it, or want to listen to the episode
(11:15):
and then go to us speaking human, Do you want to see the ad?
You could go to Speaking Human,you could see it right now.
But to paint a picture of thead for everyone, here's a brief description
of what goes down in the FluffyBun ad. All Right, So,
the ad, which aired for thefirst time in January of nineteen eighty four.
(11:39):
So I'm setting the picture for youright now by giving you the year
it came out. That should tellyou something, okay, because it does
have that quality of nineteen eighty four. Came out during the Super Bowl and
features three elderly women at a genericif you want to call a generic fast
(12:01):
food restaurant with a sign hanging upthat says home of the Big Bun.
So they stare at this huge bunwith a tiny patty on it, and
it prompts the one woman to angrilyask where's the beef? Right? And
then the narrator of the commercial breaksin to tell us, at Wendy's,
(12:26):
we save a hamburger, we modestlycall the single, and Wendy's single has
more beef than the Whooper or BigMac. At Wendy'd you get more beef
and less bun. And the rest, as they say, is history.
It's a nice little little nugget there. So let's talk about this, Chad,
What do you think? Where's thebeef? What are your thoughts on
this aid aka fluffy bun? Fluffybun? Uh? Yeah, let's just
(12:48):
you know, start pretty generally here. Thoughts on this ad, you know,
will kind of go through whether welike it, dislike it, Does
it work, does it not work? What do we think when we're doing
a dive like this, when we'regoing back on something. You got to
watch it like ten times and reallythink about it beyond the surface, because
you know the you know the gistof it, right, it's you've heard
(13:11):
it over and over, but youkind of like you want to see it
in a different way. So lookingat this again, I you know,
I really like the concept. Themeat so to speak of the ad is
very strong. The visual. Itcreates a visual, right, It doesn't
just point out a benefit of Wendy'sburgers. It shows you you get this
exaggerated visual of the competition that emphasizesthe disparity. So giant bun tiny burger
(13:37):
that kind of is burned into yourbrain. That's pretty good. Makes some
bold statement and it names names right. The narrator directly says the Wendy's single
has more beef than the whopper orbig mac boom. Those are fighting words
right there. That's a big deal. A lot of times people would shy
away from actually like saying the namesof the competitor. This one doesn't.
(14:01):
It's like, this is bigger thanthose ones. Mine are bigger than yours.
Right, Yeah, that's that's bold. And the third thing, it
creates a challenge. There's a book, a great marketing book called Made to
Stick, probably one of the bestmarketing books out there, I think,
which notes when when these established credibilityby essentially challenging consumers to try the burgers
(14:26):
and see for yourself. You know, that's kind of what this ad did.
The way it was establishing credibility wassaying, here, here's what we're
telling you. You don't have totake our word for it. Go get
these burgers and see ours is bigger. You're gonna get more with ours.
Those are things I think about thead that works really well. What do
you think about the ad? Imean, I like it obviously, I
(14:46):
think it works. And the thingabout this ad is all the things that
you said absolutely true. Really,these old ladies became synonymous with the Where's
the beef? But they made itcomical. Something about this time period,
and these old ladies worked, right. I feel like any other decade they
probably wouldn't even have worked that timeperiod. And the elderly component, for
(15:11):
some reason, just clicked on thisad and like elevated it. Do you
think it holds up today or isit a relic? I think, you
know, there's a timelessness to theslogan. I do think that the ad
itself, the delivery, is verymuch of its time. Yeah. You
know, when I even look atthis initial ad, I really get distracted
(15:33):
by the background, the fast foodbackground of the ad. I'm like,
is that cubicles? Is it atic tac toe board? It's just the
background design seems so odd to me. I find it's super distracting now.
I don't know, maybe that's whatfast food restaurants looked like at that time,
but I find it now it justlooks very strange and cheap to me.
(15:54):
So that's one thing that I thinkis very comes off very dated.
The other thing is is this generalidea of characters delivering slogans mm hmm was
such an eighties nineties thing, youknow what I mean. We had this
on TV and both like shows andcommercials all the time. I think of
like Herkle and Alf, and youknow, that's one spicy beatball. We
(16:18):
just ate this stuff up In theeighties and nineties, We're like give me
more of that, give me likea colorful character say in a line that
I can repeat over and over.That stuff just does not fly today,
you know what I mean. Nobody'slike I want that. Everybody's like that
just seems so fake and forced.But at that time, we were like,
this is the best, this isgreat. I can't wait to repeat
(16:41):
what this person is saying over andover again. This ad kind of dines
on that in a lot of ways. Yeah slogans, then people would repeat
and reiterate over and over again,whereas now, like if the business has
a slogan, you might remember thatslogan, but you're not like out there
hanging with your friend being like,where's the beef? You know? But
(17:04):
you know, this ad was verypopular. If we had a popularity contest
of that time period, I thinkthis ad would definitely be in the winner's
bracket. Why do you think itcaught on? Well, I think one
of the things is something you touchedon, right, And I think it's
the Old Lady, the old ladies, but specifically the old lady who was
(17:26):
Clara Peller, the eighty one yearold woman who starred in this ad.
Yeah, who became like a celebrityoff of this. They said they tried
to film the ad with some likea middle aged couple and it was like
a like a bald man delivering theline, and they knew it just didn't
work. And then they put thislady in there, and you know,
it was kind of a whole differentflavor. And I think that's you know,
(17:48):
I talked about these things. Youknow, the message is strong,
sure, the slogan's catchy, yes, but this is like, you know
how you need that extra bit ofmagic to kind of take something up a
notch. That's kind of what didit. It's like, Ah, she's
so cute. You know, she'sfunny, she's old, she's she's delivering
this line and she just becomes,you know, this this cultural character.
She's on SNL, she's wrestle Maniathere bringing her into and you know,
(18:11):
this takes it to another level.The other thing is the slogan itself then
goes kind of into the cultural lexicon. It no longer is just about Wendy's
Burgers, right, It transcends thatstarts to mean where is the substance in
that? Where's the beef? Itwas mentioned during the nineteen eighty four presidential
election. You know, the Democratichopeful Walter Mondale used it to suggest a
(18:36):
lack of substance by his arrival.People wore T shirts, they put it
on bumper stickers. It becomes youknow, it goes to that next level
where people are using it not justto talk about this ad to put in
now terms. It got meaned,but there was a much longer tail to
those things back then. Yeah,I agree with all that. I here's
the other thing. I'm just gonnathrow it out there and see what you
(18:59):
think of. This was nineteen eightyfour, right, a big year I
think across the board. But nineteeneighty four SHAD was just before nineteen eighty
five. And why you might say, well, obviously it's one year before
makes sense. Yeah, do youknow what took place in nineteen eighty five?
(19:19):
Back to the future. Ooh,I knew you were going to say
that. I knew you were goingto say that, did you? I
did? But the right answer isthe Golden Girls. The Golden Girls came
out that following year. And thereason why I bring this up is there's
no relationship, really like, there'sno connection. Nothing about this ad is
(19:41):
connected to the Golden girls. Butif you look at it, that show
ran from eighty five to ninety two, super popular, the comedy teaching us
a thing or two about life.It was this decade. It was an
era of the elderly era of oldladies really was coming into fruition. And
(20:03):
these little old ladies inside of thisgeneric fast food chain looking at this burger
was the same thing. And wewere like just soaking it in, like,
oh, these little ladies are teachingme about the proper ratio of hamburger
to bun. No. No,that's a really good point. And I
you know, maybe even another componentto that is even being able to see
(20:27):
older people being funny. Mm hmm. You know, I don't know how
much you actually were seeing that previousto that time in film, TV things
like that, you know, likethese old ladies coming there and like with
their kind of comic chops, seeingthis like different side to them, this
human side, which I don't evenknow that you saw. When I think
(20:47):
about like grandparents or older people inmy family, you saw that that much.
You know, you were supposed tohold a position of respect or something
like different than that, So likeshowing this funny side and stuff like that,
those things coming across, you know, up to like ten years ago,
this idea of Betty White swearing onthings, you know, people were
like it was very endearing in adifferent side of like the elderly persona that
(21:12):
we didn't necessarily think of. Andwhen you had that out there and you
put that in ads and kind ofTV shows, people were like, oh,
this is like another way of seeingthe elderly that I wasn't necessarily seeing
before. Yeah, and I thinkthat that fluffy bun commercial was sort of
the lead into that. Maybe oneled to the other, Maybe there is
(21:33):
a connection. I think that thatdecade definitely lent itself to being able to
absorb it in a different way thanmaybe any other decade. Yeah, that's
a really interesting note. Somebody coulddo a whole analysis. You know,
there's a student who could spend timejust looking at elderly representation in like the
seventies to nineties and see what thatlooks like. Yeah, let's see the
(21:57):
trajectory. Yeah, yeah, howthat kind of like changed over time and
how a key pin in that wholestory is where's the beef? Interesting kind
of sad note to that whole thing, though, is Clara Peller. Though,
the woman who was in this adbecomes famous off of Where's the Beef
(22:18):
then appears in a Prago commercial thatplays off of Where's the Beef Wendy's cancer.
She gets fired fired her after that, So you know, to kind
of wrap things up here, Lookingat this ad amidst all the other great
ads out there, do you thinkit deserves a place in the advertising Hall
of Fame? That's part one ofthe questions. Part two. Is this
(22:41):
the best fast food commercial ever made? I would say yes? And is
this the best fast food commercial?Yes? I would say so. Is
there another one? I don't know, maybe, but I can't think of
it. I mean, I haveto agree. When I was trying to
think about it, the only otherones that come close that I could think
(23:03):
of were the McDonald's ones where itwas like Michael Jordan versus Larry Bird.
That was a pretty famous one,and that's okay. Or then Taco Bell
the dog Yo Kiero Taco Bell prettyfamous. The other ones I think of
are mostly jingles. I think oflike Burger Kings have it your Way.
I couldn't really think of a greatcommercial to go with it, like Arby's.
(23:25):
We have the meats, but Ican't think of a great singular commercial
to go with it. That's kindof the reason why I think it's the
best. It's a singular commercial,and it created the slogan, It created
the tagline, where's the beef?It's super, super simple, like even
Arby's We've got the meats, whichis I would say, probably as close
(23:48):
to that as you could get.Yeah, required consistency, uniformity, and
repetition over and over and over againfor you to remember that and stick with
you forever. Now. Yeah,but as a singular entity, this would
be it. And I do likeYokiera Taco Bell, but that also,
(24:10):
I would argue, took repetition too, and I think that's faded with time
too. The fact that you mentionedit, I bet you most people have
never even heard of that, youngpeople specially. That's when we think about
the advertising Hall of Fame. Ithink one significant thing is forty years later,
we're still talking about this ad.Forty years later, I think we
can still find people young people wholike know this slogan, even if they
(24:33):
don't know exactly what Branda came from. Yeah, you know, you might
even be hard pressed to find Yo, Kiera Taco Bell people. Now,
you know, younger people who weren'taround when that was aired, you know
what that is. Yeah, otherthan it says Taco Bell, it does
have the name. Yeah, soit's got that going for it, and
they get points far. It's justlike when you know, we were talking
(24:55):
about the movie titles before and someonesays the movie title in the movie,
you get points. But yeah,every time. And I think the best
case for the advertising Hall of Famebeyond you know history. It's got history.
So that's that's the number one keyI think too. But in its
time, I gotta throw these numbersout there real quick because I think they're
(25:15):
just kind of pretty wild. Twomonths after the commercial aired, forty seven
percent of customers believe that Wendy's singlewas bigger than the Big Mac or Whopper,
and during the first year the adsran, Wendy's revenue increased by thirty
one percent. It's pretty crazy froma commercial. Yeah, it made them
the number two Burger fast food chain. I mean, I don't know if
(25:37):
it happened then, but obviously itmade them a player. I'm gonna go
out and limb and say it didhappen right then. I don't have any
proof, but I'm gonna say ithappened. You know, we talk about
Burger King and McDonald's as the twobigs going at each other, and then
you got Wendy's, who steps inthe ring. Nobody's really paying attention.
It's just like a knockout punch toboth of them, right. I wonder
(25:57):
if Wendy's burgers are still bigger.You don't here mention that anymore, so
I feel like they must have correctedthat problem. I mean, isn't that
sort of subjective? I mean,it could be bigger in one circumstance and
not in another. It's just likesaying, did my burger that I ever
ordered from a fast food place looklike the one that was pictured on the
(26:19):
menu behind the counter? Never?Not one time? Yeah, but you
could probably get a sample of onehundred burgers from each place and weigh them,
and if you know, they're fifteenpercent bigger ninety percent of the time.
True. True, My argument stillholds true. Have you ever had
a sandwich from a fast food placethat looks like the menu item, the
(26:41):
picture and the menu item behind thecounter. No, here's a better question.
Have you ever read two of thesame fast food items that looked the
same. Oh no, sitting rightnext to each other. No. Yeah,
yeah, made by the same personat the same time. Other than
when I'm we made the whoppers andthey were perfect. You were the quintessential
(27:06):
whopper maker. Yeah. I hada reputation to a pold. People were
like, we need that guy onour team, and You're like, I'm
sorry, I'm going on to dobigger and better things. I'll see you.
That's when I went to work atthe Italian Oven, did you Yeah,
that was the heyday of restaurants hiringany dope off the streets. It
(27:27):
was the beginnings. It taught youabout customer service, taught you about quality
performance, and you know, toppings. M m yeah, pickles onions.
Let us pickles onions, putting afrozen patty on a conveyor belt and watching
it come out at the other enddripping of grease. But it was char
(27:48):
brawl grease. So it was goodfor you. Yeah, yeah, you
know. All right, Well,I think we covered a lot about the
beef today. Hopefully you got somethingout of that. And that's it for
today's episode. You can find currentand past episodes, including the commercial we
talked about today on Speaking human dotcom. We'll be back in forty years
(28:11):
with another episode of Speaking Human.Catch you then Humans Speaking Human
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