AdMiration feature: Wendy’s “Sweeps Alley Oop”

For this week’s AdMiration feature, we looked at consumer response to Wendy’s “Sweeps Alley Oop” ad, part of their March Madness campaign in the US to promote their sweepstakes and the official addition of their iconic Frosty combos to the menu as the “Official Dunk of March Madness.” 

Read on to get our 3-2-1 snapshot of the ad (3 facts, 2 learnings and 1 reflection) and learn how their ad was received based on our data.

The ad opens to a group of fans sitting outside on bleachers, excitedly watching a basketball game, when one of the fans — who’s holding some Wendy’s fries in one hand and their signature Frosty in another — suddenly notices he’s out of fries. 

Devastated, he looks around, only to lock eyes with another onlooker, holding a carton of Wendy’s fries, who sees his dilemma. “Industry Baby” by Lil Nas X starts to play as the onlooker lines up and throws some fries in an impressive alley oop to the other fan, who catches the pass and promptly dunks the fries into his Frosty. 

A narrator comes in to say, “The most epic dunks are at Wendy’s this March Madness. Order from the Dunks menu in the app for your chance to win.” The ad closes with the Wendy’s official Dunks menu logo and someone dunking their fries into a Frosty.

3 facts

• This is a very effective ad that lands in the top third of US ads in ability to drive short-term sales (Sales Impact: 67) and performs even better with younger audiences, landing in the top 20% of US ads for adults under 36 (Sales Impact: 80). 

• This spot does a great job at making the Wendy’s brand come to mind more often through using what it's known for (its Frosty’s and its fries) and tying it to a moment in culture (March Madness) with “the dunks” that are very prevalent for both.  

• Through its strong ability to reach the audience and be relatable, the ad effectively moves people to choose Wendy’s, resulting in a strong purchase uplift score (Purchase Uplift: 29% vs. 22% norm) — exactly what a brand running a short-term campaign wants to see.

2 learnings

• Turning cultural moments into triggers drives action. Wendy’s doesn’t just reference March Madness in this spot — it builds the creative around one of its most recognizable moments (basketball dunks) and mirrors it with a familiar product behavior (dunking fries into Frosty's). This insight was a great way to seamlessly connect the product to the sport and create a clear connection that makes it easy for consumers to act, directly supporting the brand’s strategy to drive in-app engagement through the Dunks Menu. 

• Emotional impact doesn’t need to be constant, just well-timed. While the overall emotion viewers say they feel after watching the ad is in line with norm, the ad drives above-average emotional intensity throughout the spot as a whole, indicating strong real-time engagement. Rather than building emotion across the full narrative, the ad creates peak moments that people actively react to, with the strongest response occurring when “the dunk” comes to life. This shows that well-timed emotional peaks can make an ad, even a short one, engaging enough to drive attention. And even better drive action, as seen in this case, where the peaks relate to the product specifically — ultimately making people want to buy.

1 reflection

Are you giving your audience a clear reason to act in the moment? Wendy’s doesn’t rely on deep storytelling or standout distinctiveness to win with this spot. Instead, it builds its ad around a simple, familiar behavior and ties it to a culturally relevant moment — creating a clear path from attention to action.

By grounding the idea in something people already do (dunking fries into Frosty’s), the ad broadens its appeal beyond core sports fans.

The result is an ad that doesn’t just capture attention, but connects it to the sport and makes people want the food, resulting in high sales impact — showing that in high-energy moments, cultural relevance, when connected to the brand, can be just as powerful as a consistent storyline.

Wendy’s campaign was created in partnership with VML to celebrate and tie-in to March Madness in the US. 

In addition to a series of ads and a Wendy’s Dunk Team, the campaign includes a new Wendy’s Dunks Menu focused on its Frosty and french fries as well as its chicken nuggets and tendys, with the chance to win a $100,000 grand cash prize by ordering off the new Dunks Menu via the app.

​Lindsay Radkoski, CMO at Wendy’s shares, “This March Madness, we're celebrating all the ways our fans dunk — whether it’s Hot & Crispy Fries in our Classic Frosty or Tendys in our Wendy’s Signature Sauce. Every dunk at Wendy’s is a slam dunk. We’re giving fans more ways to dunk and more reasons to enjoy their favourites while they watch the tournaments.”

​Alli Pierce, Chief Creative Officer at VML adds, "By making Wendy’s Frosty and fries the Official Dunk of March Madness, we wanted people thinking about Wendy’s when they see a dunk on the court. And we couldn’t celebrate dunks without celebrating the players actually throwing them down. So, every dunk during the tournament becomes a chance for that athlete to land a Wendy’s NIL deal. Come on, Dunks!”

The campaign will run across March Madness with the sweepstakes ending on April 6.

This ad from Wendy’s does particularly well at turning one of the March Madness’ most iconic moments into a clear trigger for action, making for a very effective short term ad that lands in the top two-thirds of US ads in ability to drive short-term sales (Sales Impact: 67). 

This is even stronger among younger audiences, landing in the top 20% of US ads in ability to drive short-term sales with adults under 36 (Sales Impact: 80). 

By focusing on a relatable, well-known behavior rather than hardcore sports fandom, the ad is also able to extend beyond the expected audience. Mirroring “the dunk” in a familiar food behavior (dunking the fry in the Frosty) makes the ad much more relatable, even among audiences that may normally be less engaged with basketball, with women, for example, also responding really well to this ad (Sales Impact: 81, Brand Impact: 60). 

This relatable and familiar approach combined with the brand's distinctive brand assets (Frosty, Wendy’s cup, logo) helps the ad stand out, making for an ad that has great reach. 

We measure reach through three primary metrics: ad distinctiveness, unaided brand recall and whether viewers watched the full ad. Many ads with strong reach often outperform the norm in just one of these areas, but this ad scores in line or slightly above than the norm for all three metrics — no weak spot. This means it cuts through clutter and builds branded memorability effectively.

Diving deeper into how people reacted to the ad, while Overall Emotion (which is based on which emoji people picked after watching the ad to describe how they feel about the ad overall) is on par with the average (Overall Emotion: 59 vs. 57 norm), Emotional Intensity (how many emojis people pick to describe how they feel while watching the ad — essentially average emotions per minute) is much higher (Emotional Intensity: 21 vs. 18 norm). This means that for a short ad, people feel a lot of different things in a short period of time.

So while Love was the dominant emotion throughout most of the ad, Laughter increased through the ad, particularly when the french fry flies through the air, peaking when the man catches the fry. 

And the highest peak of Love occured when the fry is dunked into the Frosty — further showing how the ritual of dunking a fry into a Frosty resonates and that people love it.

When it comes to what people specifically liked about the ad, many mentioned the dunking of the fry in the Frosty and the basketball style toss and catch as their most liked aspects — which is great to see, as this means those are the scenes that stick in consumers memory and are clearly connected to Wendy's and its products. People also mentioned the close ups of the food, the fun, energetic tone and the music, which they felt added to the tone (Musical Appeal: 4.0 vs. 3.8 norm). 

And they of course liked the March Madness theme — which felt very relevant to the moment. 

Here’s what some people had to say: 

• "Perfect time of year to run this ad. The characters look like normal dudes, which is perfect. Everybody's watching basketball now. And as the weather heats up across the country, there's no better time for a frosty. Great ad."

• “It showed the food in an appealing way and made it look fresh and tasty. The connection with sports made it more entertaining and relatable."

• "The ad was upbeat and had a fun energy. It connected the frosty and fries pairing to basketball in a clever way."

• "I love the look of the fries and frosty - it makes me crave them both."

• "How they used basketball and tossed the fry like a ball."

• "It’s easy to remember the brand, fast and to the point and ties in with March Madness."

• "I liked the music in the background and how it was basketball themed."

• "The frosty looked really good."

Overall, the ad is effective at moving people to choose Wendy’s, resulting in a strong purchase uplift (Purchase Uplift: 29% vs. 22% norm) — certainly a win for a short-term campaign!

Wendy’s did a great job at tying their brand and DBAs to a cultural moment in this spot! What did you think? Let us know by interacting with our coverage of the ad on LinkedIn.

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