The original article appeared on Mobile Marketer on May 17, 2019 – https://www.mobilemarketer.com/news/wingstop-lets-fans-video-bomb-its-tv-ad/554995/

Brief:

• Wingstop combined mobile, social media and out-of-home advertising in a campaign that let customers “vidbomb” a commercial for the fast-food restaurant chain, which has 1,273 locations worldwide. Wingstop showcased the videos on a billboard in New York’s Times Square and on social media, per an announcement shared with Mobile Marketer.
• As part of its broader “Where Flavor Gets Its Wings” campaign, Wingstop hosted a “Flavor World” tour at 15 locations over the past few months, where it gave away tens of thousands of freshly made wings. The chain gave fans an opportunity to be filmed in front of a green screen in special video booths, and then see themselves transposed into 15-second video ads using a custom video app that boasts first-ever technology, per the chain
• Customers also received the personalized videos by email to share with their friends on social media. Wingstop and its agency 3Headed Monster worked with production company Groove Jones on creating the videos.

Insight:

Wingstop’s campaign aimed to engage customers in an omnichannel strategy that combined original videos, social media and OOH advertising for maximum effect. The campaign was unusual in giving fans of the chain a chance to appear in customized commercials that they could share with their friends and followers on social media, boosting the likelihood of going viral and adding an element of authenticity to the brand’s marketing, something consumers want more of these days.

Wingstop’s campaign is part of a broader trend of incorporating user-generated content into OOH strategies at a time when OOH advertising is growing. OOH has also been shown to be a powerful channel for driving consumers into physical locations. To promote its new Absolut World vodka, Absolut last year debuted a “Global Selfie” campaign encouraging travelers flying from Frankfurt to Singapore to upload selfies to an online platform that are then shared on digital displays. Disney promoted “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” with digital billboards in Times Square and Toronto’s TEC Towers to display real-time Twitter reactions from fans of the movie.

Wingstop has found success from its investment in technology, with more with more than 30% of orders arriving through digital channels in Q1, Nation’s Restaurant News reported. The brand is “well on our way to digitizing every transaction,” Charlie Morrison, chairman and CEO of Wingstop, said in a quarterly conference call to discuss results. Wingstop has an exclusive delivery program with DoorDash.