In San Diego today, McDonald’s is starting to test its breakfast all day long. It’s certainly totally a coincidence that this is Annual Cannabis Wink Wink Celebration Day.
Meanwhile, the Taco Bell Twitter feed is quiet today, so far:
We were all expecting a cannabis joke. How restrained and disciplined of you to withhold it, Taco Bell. Keep on zagging, TB.
Which is significant because in 2012 Taco Bell “won” (in internetspeak) the 4/20 Twitter Jokes By Appropriate Brands war, pre-emptively. It’s a prime example of how responsive, brand-confident, quick-witted, and plain funny Taco Bell was daring to be on social media—showing all the other brands, basically, how it was done:
They were quick, they were interactive, they were self-aware, they were playing with their brand reputation in a slightly naughty way: the internet LOVES this kind of stuff. Or did in 2012.
Knowing how people are going to interpret your signals, and playing with those expectations, is how brands win real-time on social media. They create relationships, and a sense of belonging to a community. From the book:
…[relationships] are the difference between being part of your community, and just taking money from the community. You can aspire to be the best thing about your community.
Not just another corporate shill, but a clever, helpful presence, tuned into the wavelength of the customers.” — Selling Eating, Chapter 18
And so, I must say, once again, as they struggle with a Millennial Disinterest Issue, McDonald’s is a few years late to the funny-weed-joke party.
Although I do enjoy the subtlety. McD had to start the breakfast on some date or another. It’s funny. It’s just not A-student, over-achieving, trailblazingly first. Typical of stoner culture in a way, I guess.
