Fast-food giant Wendy’s invented the ‘National Roast Day’ back in 2018, as a Twitter version of the ‘roasting’ done by comics at the New York Friars Club, Dean Martin’s Celebrity Roasts in his TV show in the 70s, or the Comedy Central Roasts.
The format is simple – Wendy’s picks a date and opens the Roast Day. People, and brands, ask to be roasted by the Roastmaster of the day on Twitter (Wendy’s Twitter handle). And Wendy’s gives it to them, usually likeable and sassy, though you could argue that some roasts end up sounding mean and rude. That’s the thin line for roasts in any case – whether it is sassy or rude is a matter of perspective.
But the basic rule of roast is that the consent of the roastee is important. So, Wendy’s National Roast Day is based on people and brands volunteering to be roasted.
Wendy’s paused the event in 2020 after announcing it since the world was in turmoil and roasting did not seem like a good idea in the first year of a global pandemic.
But it has done admirably well across 2018, 2019, 2021… and now 2022.
People asking to be roasted makes sense, but things get considerably more interesting—and exciting—when fellow brands ask to be roasted. With random individuals, we don’t know anything about them for the roasts to make sense – Wendy’s too would be shooting in the dark based on the cues available online publicly – display picture, bio, etc. But with brands, considering there is broader awareness and understanding, the roasts are more broadly enjoyable and funny.
In 2022, Wendy’s worked with its agencies, VMLY&R, Ketchum, and Spark Foundry, for the content that was posted mostly live across a 2-3 day period.
Here’s a pick of my favorite brand roasts from this year.
Would a Twitter-roast work in India? Rather, would an Indian brand dare to create a Twitter roast, in India?
After all, the last time a roast was held in public in India, led by All India Bakchod, it went completely haywire with the Police and the public going hammer and tongs are the organizers, participants, event managers, and everyone involved.
Looking beyond the stand-up comic-style roasting, considering all kinds of content start an offense outrage in India, I wonder if we would ever see any brand attempting a roast online here. The number of ‘holy cows’ in India is extraordinarily high. But the very point of roasting is that it is done based on consent from the roastee. So, if a sassy brand (like say Zomato on Twitter) is to attempt this (with context, of course, considering they have a lot of roasted items on their many menus hosted on the platform), other brands would need to ask to be roasted. Roasting, as per the joke, is always solicited… and not an unsolicited insult.
Then, it is a matter of a brand’s social media team’s (and the agency’s) ability to engage in real-time and come up with witty, sassy, and good-natured insults without treading into the ‘rude’ or ‘abusive’ territory. That’s a bigger challenge than simply kickstarting the effort.
The opportunity is still wide open in India. I reckon the outrage brigade would be eagerly waiting too 🙂
Zomato is one of the few Indian brands on Twitter that commands anything close to what we see in terms of engagements for Wendy’s roasts (see the Likes and Quotes on the tweets). For example, do you remember this tweet and what it unleashed?
But in this case, all the other brands jumped in because they stood to gain from their own intelligence that builds on Zomato’s simple tweet. In case of a roast, the replying brands need to demonstrate humility while seeking to be, and getting roasted/insulted in a good-natured manner. That itself may be the stumbling block for something like a social media brand roast to happen in India.