In Seattle, “SailGating” is equivalent to a tailgating party, except on water. Wendy’s agency, The Marketing Arm, had the idea of building a restaurant on the water, right in front of the University of Washington, so that they could provide free food to all the fans that would be on the water before the big game against USC. It was our job to determine if it could be done safely ... then design, build, ship, install and launch; all within 3 weeks!
We created a 60’x20’x26’ structure to contain Wendy’s food truck, a 4-side facade, plus the ability to connect 2 floating docks for boats and dinghies to pull up to our version of a “sail-thru” window.
As the bay filled up with boats full of Husky fans eager to fill the 70,000 person stadium, faces lit up across the water at the sight of our towering Wendy’s restaurant on the water and little red dinghies delivering food.
For 3 straight hours, we cranked out fresh, hot Dave’s singles, spicy nuggets, and original Wendy’s Frosties. Our docks were constantly full of boats and our branded dinghies made non-stop food deliveries. Wendy’s received some fantastic press hits, a myriad of organic social media and an incredible amount of word-of mouth publicity!
The world’s largest recognition program for event marketing professionals, judged entirely by brand marketers, this project won Event Marketer’s EX Award's Best Sports Activation – Silver Winner and along with the Marketing Arm, we a proud to be part of that team.
