A Sandwich Chain Asked for Its Hat Back

Arby's social media manager sent the tweet from his snowed-in home in Atlanta. It reached 384 times the brand's normal audience on Twitter.

On the evening of 26 January 2014, Pharrell Williams walked the Grammy red carpet in a brown Vivienne Westwood buffalo hat. Within half an hour someone had created a Twitter account for the hat, and that account suggested the cap should be the new logo for Arby's. The resemblance was not subtle.

Arby's social media manager, Josh Martin, was at home in a snowbound Atlanta watching the broadcast. He saw the mentions, wrote one line, and posted it. By the next morning the tweet had tens of thousands of retweets, Williams had replied, and brands including Pepsi and Quaker Oats had joined the thread.