strategist
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(Yes, that's an actual DM we got from Arby's during this project)
​The Ask: Develop an influencer campaign for Arby's to gain affinity with Gen Z
Arby's current reputation is being the fast food restaurant for an older demographic. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but younger generations are more likely to consume fast food. ​​​​​
--> 40% of Boomers are frequent fast food customers, while 60% of Gen Z are frequent fast food consumers (MRI Simmons)
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And when you ask Gen Z their favorite fast food restaurants, they're not saying Arby's. Arby's needs to start winning with Gen Z, so we set out to do something that would get their attention. ​
Market Context
QSR social media is the wild west.
Mascot birthday parties
Fake (?) job postings
"Meme"-able product launches
Hyper-reactive content
Arby’s needs to stand out in a landscape already full of unconventional plays, so we knew we had the freedom to go big.
Cultural Context
With this in mind, we latched on to one specific trend that ultimately drove our strategy.
Cultural Trend: Gen Z connects strongly with influencers and other personalities on social media, forming "parasocial relationships"
232.4k likes
1,317 comments
And this isn't just surface level. Shared moments can lead to surprisingly deep emotional bonds.
We connect with media figures and events because they tap into shared emotions and rituals that make us feel like we belong.
So that's why we created Meat Girl - an influencer (created by Arby's) to slowly become the face of the brand.
Step One: Introducing "Meat Girl"
In order to thoughtfully bring Meat Girl to life, we created a detailed backstory for her:
She was born and raised in Chicago’s Meatpacking District as the daughter of a deli owner. Meat Girl is chaotically good, deeply earnest, and oddly poetic about meat.
She is a social media manager who lives with her dog, Curly. Her boyfriend, Kale, is the perfect plant-based foil — the yin to her meat-minded yang.
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This first post was her introduction to the world. Even though our idea was for Arby's to create and plant her, Meat Girl started off without ever mentioning the brand. ​
Step Two: Build the Meat Girl World
For 6 months, Meat Girl produced non-branded content, interacted with her followers, and analyzed data to grow a true and organic following.
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We created content for her based on current trends. To see her entire account, click here.
#watertok - 181.1k posts on TikTok
#mukbang - 7.3M posts on TikTok
These are real interactions Meat Girl was having on her account. We wanted her to build an actual relationship through engagement.
We also wanted to make sure the content was reaching the right consumers and resonating with them, so we analyzed views, shares, saves, and interactions with the Meat Girl account.
Step Three: Arby's Enters the Chat
Once Meat Girl had created a proper following and community, Arby's "reached out" and offered to sponsor her. Over the course of 4 months, she slowly became the face of Arby's.
What made this project really cool is that the real Arby's TikTok page reached out to "Meat Girl" after a couple days of us posting the content online.
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This was our proof that we had created something that could actually work for Arby's.
Step Four: It's a Meat Girl World
Our dream is for Meat Girl to live on as the face of Arby's forever, but this project only lasted four weeks...
As the final step, we created episodic video content that would be the first step in Meat Girl's continuing journey with Arby's. To capitalize on the popularity of reality TV shows, we created a teaser ad for "Love is Meat" - a spoof on Love is Blind that Arby's could post on their socials to help Meat Girl (following her breakup with Kale, of course) find love.