We wanted to make a campaign that meant something bigger than just hot dogs. Going about it the way we did spoke to what makes hot dogs the fun food they are. Talking about hot dogs through the emotion of fun felt a lot more honest and real than trying to simply educate. We set out to educate through fun, not through lists and facts.
Behold our creative concept:
We wanted to watch America have fun just like they do when they eat a hot dog. This is because our research showed us that people enjoy hot dogs the most when they go out and eat one with friends. We had no idea such a small detail like a hot dog could make life more fun. If that was the case, Wienerschnitzel should stand for fun.
But a brand can't come right out of the gate and be the only brand that stands for fun. A lot of brands already tie themselves to some aspect of fun, but no brand stands explicitly, ONLY for fun. So we start the campaign's Out Of Home without any branding behind it.
After a month, we expect media buzz and general public inquiry, so THEN Wienerschnitzel gets revealed as the brand behind all this fun. This leaves Wienerschnitzel standing alone as THE brand that stands solely for fun. Unbridled, messy, wholehearted fun.
Along with the Out Of Home becoming branded, Wienerschnitzel will release a "Fun App" that will challenge America to have fun in many ways every week.
We call the app: Funusual
In Funusual, the challenges are there to bring an extra spark to someone's day same way hot dogs do.
We wrote about 300 challenges, but I still think of new ones all the time. And by having fun For Fun's Sake, people would get rewarded with more fun. There were a lot of tier levels for rewards, but our favorite was by far our Wienerschnitzel clothing line designs.
Along with the app, Wienerschnitzel's social media gets revamped to bring people into the fun.
Out Of Home, social media, and an app on their own are fun, but to bring everything together we created a traveling fair for people to visit and truly experience fun For Fun's Sake.
Five locations, five ultra fun activities. First is the Dog Park. That's just a dog park. But it's got hot dog themed enrichment activities.
Then the Dachshund Racetrack. We wanted to highlight an activity that Wienerschnitzel already does called the Wiener Nationals. It's a funny little race where wiener dogs try their darnedest to run 50 meters without getting distracted. We loved it and made it a highlight of the Fair.
The Local Hot Dog Fair is where we elevate ALL hot dogs, just like Wienerschnitzel asked. Local hot dog vendors and restaurants get invited to serve their dogs alongside Wienerschnitzel. Each city get's their own name for each fair, like Chicago-schnitzel, Miami-schnitzel, or:
The Karaoke Palace is a giant stage where anyone and everyone can get in on the fun of singing (however good or bad). Wiener World is a fun space for people to get their Instagram game on. It's a megaplex of aesthetic rooms that places like the WNDR Museum made famous.
So much of the writing was a blast for this campaign, and finding new ideas on how to bring out fun was incredible. Not only was I able to write fun copy for this, but I was also able to find already fun activities and places to bring something new that wasn't there before. It was a wild, crazy, unforgettable experience to wear that many hats and help create this staggering amount of content with my fellow team members.
I was also one of the presenters that pitched our idea at the District 6 Regionals. It was a great experience that gave me the confidence to know I can do it in an industry setting as well. Working and practicing for hours on end with the other three presenters was hard, going through round after round of feedback. But we kept our heads up, and for our final presentation, we nailed it. I couldn't be prouder.
