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When the gaming world saw Wendy’s had dropped an RPG, one of the first things on their mind was...who wrote Feast of Legends?
Hail, travelers, and wonder no more, after a quick interview with a bard that specializes in advertising, Matt Keck of VMLY&R reveals that his was the hand that penned such a magical, mysterious, and bizarre game. Yea, though branded entertainment month be past, sit down at the tavern’s counter, nurse your ale, and attend the making-of tell all of the epic we know as... The Feast of Legends.
Above: The promo for Feast of Legends.
First, tell us a little about yourself!
I’m Matt Keck, I work for VMLY&R on the Wendy’s account. I’ve worked on Wendy’s stuff for about seven years now. I really got started in advertising because I was a goof on the internet and one of the friends I had met doing stand-up comedy suggested I could be a good fit for work in social media and got me an interview.
I’ve been gaming in some form or another since playing Pokémon Cards in the 7th Grade. My parents thought D&D (Dungeons & Dragons) was “devil stuff” so I didn’t really start playing TTRPGs (Tabletop Role-Playing Games) until about 10 years ago. Got really into Ultimate Werewolf for a while, and then it was everything from D&D to Tales From the Loop.
Also, my FUNKO collection is stupid. I have like 300 of them. They’re just part of all the toys and action figures I collect. I have a problem.
How did the idea for Feast of Legends come around?
We are constantly paying attention to what our fans love and use that as inspiration for ways to engage with them. Tracking what people are talking about, and specifically what fans of Wendy’s are talking about, is one of the most important parts of my job.
The thing to remember when doing something like Feast of Legends is that you have to be true to both your brand voice and the community you are engaging with.
There is no denying the rise in popularity that tabletop gaming is experiencing, and has been for the past six or seven years. I always wanted to do something with RPGs, and now with the cultural movement, and now there was an authentic reason to write it for the Wendy’s brand. You could see games and gamers appearing more and more in pop culture, television, and at cross-nerd spaces like comic cons. Having D&D on shows like Stranger Things, Community, and The Big Bang Theory elevated the cultural currency of the game, all the while celebrities like Deborah Ann Woll and Joe Manganiello are going on interviews talking about their in-game characters.
Much like we’ve done with gaming and our Fortnite activation, we found a moment where it made sense for the brand to enter. The audience was there.
Working with Wendy’s, we never do anything halfway. We could have just done a single character sheet, or post some shots with cheeseburgers and dice, but that wasn’t enough. The teams started thinking about what it would look like to write an entire game based solely on the Wendy’s brand. Which, honestly, is just a ludicrous thought, but as more and more ideas for how it could work were coming to us, the more we knew we had to do it.
The entire team was passionate about releasing a project that was fun, and funny, and just straight up cool.
I developed the basics of the story and how the game could work before presenting it, and Wendy’s reaction was perfect. They were immediately on board. They really gave us room to make this thing as authentically as we could, allowing us to keep pushing the writing forward to make it ring true with the brand. When your brand battle is against frozen beef, why not storygame actual battles against frozen beef?
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When this book dropped so many people wanted to know who wrote it! What was that experience like?
It was eye opening to see how many people were asking for the credits! People genuinely wanted to know who actually wrote the book. But our work at VMYL&R has always been about building the brand and not the individual contributors, which has extended to the Wendy’s mixtape, our twitch channel, and now this book.
There is nothing more important than being fan-first when it comes to including pop culture in your messaging.
Sure, fans know there are actual people behind the girl in the Wendy’s logo, but the creative idea is that she is the author, the gamer, the roaster. “Wendy” is this multifaceted creative force with enough attitude to back it up.
Let's give out some kudos. Who else worked on Feast of Legends?
Along with our client partners, there was an incredible agency team behind the entire campaign; I led copywriting along with Tony Marin, the Creative Director, who made edits, really making sure all of the nonsense I was writing was legible.
The layout was done by Ben Grace, art director and Conor Clarke, senior art director. Conor was part of the Fortnite team with us as well. Then we hired an artist named Alex Lopez to do the character designs, and Collin Fogel to do all the maps, and they were amazing to work with and just crushed it. Our producer, Shae Mermis, found both of these incredible artists, and really helped make sure everything happened smoothly.
People can either let themselves have a laugh, realize that it’s all in fun, or not. Some people take things incredibly seriously, and that’s ok too.
Jeremy Cline, senior analyst, strategy and insights and McKay Hathaway, group creative director really helped with figuring out the actual execution and strategy. Our Senior Connections Manger, Samantha Schuster and Supervisor, Client Engagement, Colin Belmont helped with how we were going to put this thing out, and what it looked like as we teased and released the game.
Did you playtest Feast of Legends?
Yes we did, and with a variety of groups. There were quite a few meetings leading up to releasing Feast of Legends where we scheduled blocks of meetings just for playtesting.
What did you keep in mind while writing?
One of the biggest focuses while writing was making the rules as slick and simple as possible. It would be foolish to expect people to invest as much time into Feast of Legends as they do their own homebrewed* stories and characters. This game was meant to have enough depth to make it playable and fun, but not so convoluted that your friend who’s never played an RPG before could easily play along and have some laughs.
We were worried; we knew that the biggest risk was that fans could complain about this being an ad, so we leaned into that angle hard. At no point did we want people to think we were hiding that Feast of Legends was an ad. It actually says “#ad,” during one of the descriptions in the book.
Working with Wendy’s, we never do anything halfway. We could have just done a single character sheet, or post some shots with cheeseburgers and dice, but that wasn’t enough.
In addition, we also wanted to be as true to the brand as possible. There are so many hidden jokes that reference different parts of Wendy’s history in this book. There are callbacks to everything from older campaigns such as ‘Where’s the Beef’ to ‘Nuggs for Carter’.
*Homebrew is a gaming term where you take an established game and make your own rules, classes, weapons, lore, etc.
Tabletop is a huge community, with money to spend on the work that interests us! Why do you think brands have been hesitant to enter this community?
I think with the tabletop community, and really within all niche communities, brands are nervous. The reason for this hesitation is that if they dip their toes in these waters with even a hint of insincerity, the fan base will tear them to shreds at worst, and at best think they’re doing a full on, “How do you do, fellow kids,” moment.
The thing to remember when doing something like Feast of Legends is that you have to be true to both your brand voice and the community you are engaging with.
When releasing branded content, you need to frame and engage with that advertising in a totally different communication style than you would with a traditional ad.
Do you think that when brands approach beloved parts of pop culture, it’s important to keep fans first?
For a long time people in the ad industry have talked about disrupting the experience. Nothing is more annoying than someone disrupting your space uninvited.
Something my partner, Jeremy Cline, always says is that “assimilation is the new disruption.” Stop interrupting the experience, and just become a part of it. Sure, some people may have bought Feast of Legends if we sold it, but more people will see it and get their hands on it if we just offer it to them free. At the end of the day Feast of Legends is a game, but it is also branded messaging that is only effective if someone sees it and experiences it.
People genuinely wanted to know who actually wrote the book. But our work at VMYL&R has always been about building the brand and not the individual contributors, which has extended to the Wendy’s mixtape, our twitch channel, and now this book.
There is nothing more important than being fan-first when it comes to including pop culture in your messaging. If you aren’t a true fan of the things you’re incorporating into your advertising, it’s going to fall flat. A diversity of content can only come from diversity of thought. That’s why it’s so important for teams to have people from a variety of backgrounds in order to make sure you are authentically speaking to those you are trying to reach.
What do you think the benefit is when you let your fans have their way with the IP?
Allowing fans to have their way with IP has, in general, done nothing but good for the brand that owns it. It allows your fans to go even deeper into the community you’ve created, gets them further invested, and in the end, makes them a customer that will most likely spend more money with your brand. Cracking down on fan use of IP is just going to sour their creativity and drive them toward a community that’s more welcoming.
Why do you think that so many people responded to Feast of Legends - either positively or negatively?
First and foremost, the game and the fact we actually made it is ridiculous, right? Your class* is now the food you order, the enemies are monster made of frozen meat, it’s silly. People can either let themselves have a laugh, realize that it’s all in fun, or not. Some people take things incredibly seriously, and that’s ok too.
In the end, that was a major reason you put something like this out for free. We aren’t trying to take customers from the people that are working incredibly hard to sell their games and stories. We just wanted to have fun, and wanted other people to have fun too.
We were worried; we knew that the biggest risk was that fans could complain about this being an ad, so we leaned into that angle hard.
It’s basically the same response we receive on our Twitter account. There are people who have followed along and laughed with us for years, and to them, us releasing this game was barely a surprise. For most people, the Wendy’s RPG fed their excitement that we were doing something in the RPG space and engaging as a brand in something that they love.
*The character’s “career” in a game - Bard, Fighter, Sorcerer, etc.
What lessons can brands learn from Feast of Legends and the online discussion that happened around crediting and authenticity?
When releasing branded content, you need to frame and engage with that advertising in a totally different communication style than you would with a traditional ad. People in artistic communities take giving credit very seriously, as they should. When releasing content in one of these communities it is important to give credit to the people that worked on the content because it’s sort of the built-in code of conduct. This is true for crediting a director, composer, or animated character designer. There’s a reason that trade industries have special awards for each career.
Stop interrupting the experience, and just become a part of it.
As a brand, you also have to stay true to your brand messaging. The brand messaging and the goal for Feast of Legends was to continue building the Wendy’s persona. In this scenario I’m more like a ghost writer than a lead writer. A spooky ghost.
Overall, I think many people that read the book went in with low expectations. What they found was a project our team poured our passion and craft into. At the end of the day, we’re an ad agency, and our focus is always on making sure Wendy’s social presence and brand positioning come to life for our customers. The entire team was passionate about releasing a project that was fun, and funny, and just straight up cool. The number of exciting moments the process gave this team and many of the people who played it was proof of the authenticity.
Last question...tell me about your favorite D&D character.
My favorite D&D character was named Big Bear. He was pretty much an overblown version of me. He was a pansexual, human barbarian that was loud and boisterous and loved to fight. He was protective and loyal, but also loved to take all the credit. He’s also a werebear, which I am not, so we aren't exactly identical.
After every major battle he would talk about how he defeated the big bad, whether he had actually done it or not. He also made people build him a statue, which he inevitably had to fight in a dramatic battle against his own ego. I could talk about Big Bear all day.
We played that campaign for like three or four years, and I’ve carried him over as an NPC in a game I started running right before the pandemic. Knowing me, I’ll probably end up getting a Big Bear tattoo at some point.
