Wendy's Takes Major Shot at McDonald's

By Michael Hein

Wendy's took a shot at McDonald's on Twitter on Monday, but in fairness, McDonald's seemed to ask for it. The two fast-food chains are becoming infamous for their increasingly pointed social media jabs, with many followers amused by the idea of a single social media operator speaking on behalf of the whole company. On Monday, during the widespread Instagram and Facebook outage, McDonald's asked Twitter at large: "If u were the person who ran the McDonald's account for a day, what would u tweet?"

Wendy's responded in a merciless quote retweet which read: "Where the things that should be fresh are frozen, and the things that should be frozen are out of order." This was a reference to Wendy's "fresh-never-frozen" guarantee about its beef patties, which it says put it a cut above the rest of the industry. Usually, however, Wendy's does not name names in these ad campaigns. Meanwhile, the "things that should be frozen" but "are out of order" likely refers to McDonald's McFlurry machines, which have become a meme in recent years for being so unreliable.

Wendy's quote tweet picked up over 21,000 likes and over 2,300 retweets on Monday afternoon — surpassing the stats on McDonald's original tweet. If that wasn't proof enough of victory, McDonald's did not respond to Wendy's diss. Fans left comments saying that they believed Wendy's had just scored a decisive win in the fast-food social media wars.

"Hello, police? I just witnessed a f—ing murder," one person wrote. Another added: "I have never seen the Frostee machine down, just saying," while a third tweeted: "Good one Wendy's, anyways when are you going to put the pretzel bacon pub back on the menu?"

Scuffles between fast-food chains have gone from a novelty to a daily occurrence on social media, but Wendy's remains the frontrunner in the genre. Back in 2017, Wendy's even earned an entry on KnowYourMeme.com for its "smug" Twitter persona. The overview reads: "The account is known for their funny and sarcastic responses to customer complaints and questions." The account was originally operated by social media manager Amy Brown, but she handed the reigns over in March of 2017 and left the company.

"I think both as a brand and a human being trying to use Twitter, authenticity goes a long way. And, of course being funny doesn't hurt," Brown told Mashable at the time. Today, some users are jaded about personable posts coming from brand accounts, while others still get a kick out of it in the right context. Whatever their feelings, Twitter users know not to cross Wendy's unless they're prepared for the fallout.

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