#NuggsForCarter

Why it works

A teenager's tweet that became the most retweeted ever, with a fast-food brand as his co-conspirator. On 6 April 2017 Carter Wilkerson, a 16-year-old from Reno, asked Wendy's how many retweets he would need to earn a year of free chicken nuggets; the brand's account answered 18 million. When he passed a million retweets within 48 hours, Wendy's and its agencies moved the goalposts to something achievable: beating Ellen DeGeneres's celebrity Oscars selfie, then the most retweeted tweet ever. DeGeneres played along on her show, and on 9 May, NPR reported, his plea passed her record at more than 3.47 million shares. Wendy's gave him the nuggets anyway and pledged $100,000 to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. It is studied as a brand letting a customer own the story while its social voice and PR turned a throwaway reply into a national event; the Shorty Awards entry claims 213,000 new followers for @Wendys. It won a One Show Gold Pencil for real-time response.