Wendy’s had always sold a wide variety of salad options compared to its competitors, and in the summer of 2020 they had a big announcement planned: the lettuce for all of their salads would now be grown hydroponically in a greenhouse, producing higher quality lettuce that used a fraction of the water used when growing on a farm.

At the same time, a University of Guelph study found that Canadians were increasingly gravitating towards comfort food, stress eating, and unhealthy menu options as a way of coping with the pandemic. It had also been over a year since Wendy’s had been in-market with any salad messaging, causing quality perceptions to begin eroding.

With the increasing importance of the salad category, Wendy’s needed to drive home their commitment to quality ingredients and their efforts around sustainability. To be successful they would have to re-inspire Canadians and find a way to make Greenhouse Lettuce culturally relevant at a time when it was anything but.

There’s a growing trend in Canada where consumers are looking to better understand the story behind their food: what’s in it, where it comes from and how it’s produced.

With increased importance being placed on local produce and sustainable farming, they identified that they could gain relevance by not only giving consumers the story behind their food, but by giving them a key role in that story as well.

They empowered consumers to influence the growth of their food by participating online. Research shows that when you speak to your plants it actually helps them thrive. So, what better way to get consumers to care about Wendy’s Greenhouse Lettuce than to encourage them to be a part of its growth by sharing words of encouragement?

The Grown With Love campaign began on Twitter with a series of Promoted Tweets & Videos introducing the Greenhouse Lettuce story to consumers and inviting them to share some words of love and encouragement to help the lettuce grow.

They enabled seamless participation through a variety of Conversation Cards and Twitter Polls that were targeted to Wendy’s fans and the fans of our competitors – providing numerous ways to engage and maximizing the opportunity for consumer involvement.

Every day tweets of love poured in from fast food lovers across the internet, and were read to their lettuce over a loudspeaker and in-person at the greenhouse.

All of the buzz and participation generated led to one irresistible trend takeover event on Twitter, their “Lovestream”, which managed to get over 77,000 people to tune in live to watch lettuce grow, and see their tweets get read out loud.

Finally, they brought the experience full circle by retargeting everyone who participated in the event with one final video outlining how they played a critical role in the growth of the lettuce.

Wendy’s Grown With Love campaign lifted positive sentiment for the brand by 30% and re-engaged Canadians with salad. The campaign was named by Twitter “The best campaign for making us all feel connected”.

In a category experiencing no growth year over year, they successfully grew sales of salads by 23% and same restaurant sales by 8% across Canada. But, ultimately nothing grew more than the lettuce, which produced the greenhouse’s highest yield ever, showing we all benefit from a little more love.