Saturday 4 June 2011

A Wendy's Career: Serves Me Right

A Wendy's Career: Serves Me Right
Alright, so we're finally going to break away from my tangent on adult animation and move into the realm of other media.  Such as the new brochure designed to entice people to consider a job at Wendy's as a solid career move.

Now, Wendy's has always held a special place in my heart.  My grandmother used to take my sister and I there when we were on road trips and as a result it became my 'happy' place.  However, since Dave Thomas passed away Wendy's has headed steadily down hill.  Their square burgers have now become an anachronism since it seems that all Wendy's is capable of doing is upping the price and cutting corners on quality.  I long for the days of the 99 cent junior Hamburger Deluxe where neither price nor flavour was an obstacle to enjoying my Wendy's indulgences.

I was recently in a Wendy's in London, ON (ever hopeful that maybe this time I might get a Wendy's meal I can once again enjoy) and was yet again shocked at the high cost and poor quality of the meal.  Immediately after finishing I noticed the brochure in the image above advertising for Wendy's Careers.

Now, maybe it was that the food wasn't sitting right with me, or maybe I would have picked this out anyway, but I can't recall a place or time when the catch phrase "Serves me right" has been used in a positive context. All I could think upon seeing it was that someone in middle management told the Wendy's marketing firm that they were going to do a paradigm shift on the "serves me right" slogan, but I really can't see how a fast food chain could ever think they were going to accomplish something like that. Yes, if they succeeded they would have bragging rights, but it's like me trying to climb a Indian coconut tree in bare feet (it's not likely to end well). Whoever made the decision to go ahead with this was either really proud of Wendy's or oblivious to the nature of North American culture and either can be very dangerous when it comes to marketing campaigns.

However, before posting this, and just to make sure I wasn't alone in my assumption that this brochure was highly ironic I've been showing it to countless folks and asking for their opinions on it.  So far only one person, we'll call her Rosemary, didn't get the irony of it.  Rosemary did get it once I asked her what her opinion of the brochure would be if the people had label's like W.o.W. (World of Warcraft) Addict and so on.  So for her and the people like her I added the labels to the image to make sure the irony wouldn't be lost on anyone.

In conclusion, if you'd like to impress family and friends with your media savy sense of humour all you have to do is visit a local Wendy's, pick-up one of these brochures and share it at the appropriate time.  I guarantee you'll get chuckles and if you don't you're probably not hanging out in the right groups of people - not that I'm judging ;)

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