Rethink

Rethink for A&W.

A&W was Rethink's first client in 1999. A&W was the premiere drive-in burger establishment in Canada up until about the 1970s, when McDonald's starting impeding on their territory. Since the growth of McDonald's, and the decline of drive-in fast food culture, A&W has been shutting down locations and is now mainly found in mall food courts. What Rethink discovered about the brand was that although the physical locations were disappearing, the generation the grew up eating at A&W (the baby boomers) hadn't forgotten about the strong emotional connection they felt to the brand. Rethink also learned from extensive consumer research that the baby boomer generation associated A&W with many of their adolescent milestones, like their first trip to A&W, "graduating" to a Teen Burger, a first date, or driving a car. From this impressive insight, Rethink developed a "three pronged" strategy that aimed to reach consumers emotionally, functionally, and promotionally. The emotional aspect came from aligning the brand with milestone events from the boomers' youth, the functional came from visuals of how delicious the food was, and the promotional came from coupons and an emphasis on what a great value the food was. The creative execution was a throw back to the retro advertising of the past, and it meshed with the TV spots that were geared toward an older audience. Apparently, the boomers are vastly under-represented in fast food advertising. Rethink used only two media forms for this campaign: TV and direct mail coupons; the strategy behind this was "to seem much larger than we are." The campaign did start to correct for decades of declining sales and has even helped A&W surpass Burger King and Wendy's to grab the number two burger choice in Canada. Unfortunately, no one seems to be able to beat out McDonald's...in any country.