In a bold and clever marketing move, Wendy’s has capitalized on a long-standing frustration among McDonald’s customers—its frequently broken McFlurry machines.
By teaming up with McBroken.com, a website dedicated to tracking McDonald’s ice cream machine outages across the country, Wendy’s has turned a common consumer pain point into an opportunity.
According to the creators of McBroken.com, the website monitors the status of McDonald’s ice cream machines, showing which locations have working, broken, or inconclusive machines.
Their data shows that nearly 15% of McDonald’s ice cream machines were down as of Thursday, with the highest outage times occurring between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., primarily during the lunch rush. Cities like Chicago, Houston, Las Vegas, New York, and Los Angeles are among the most impacted.
Wendy’s identified this opportunity to address the frustrations of dessert fans nationwide by offering its $1 Frosty deal, a reliable and affordable alternative. Through September 30, Wendy’s is making both its classic chocolate and limited-time vanilla Frosty flavours available for just $1.
This partnership with McBroken.com allowed Wendy’s to tap into real-time data and consumer frustration, turning it into a humorous yet impactful marketing campaign. As stated in their press release: “Using data from McBroken.com, Wendy’s saw that dessert fans are faced with ice cream machine outages all too often and knew just what the fix was – a Frosty!”
Wendy’s announced the fun marketing move with videos of their truck parking outside the Golden Arches.
