For the past few years, Wendy’s has found themselves struggling to excite the consumers with new sandwich ideas. Their format used to be introducing a specialty burger that would then be available for a limited time. Some of these specialty burgers were more successful than others (please bring back the cheddar burger!).
Wendy’s Big Bacon Classic had been a mainstay of their menu for a long period of time and, in my mind, worked well. The concept was simple: the regular burger selection with a couple of strips of bacon added. Very simple…not sexy…but fine. Unfortunately, the modern era of Wendy’s then came in and stomped all over that simple concept. No longer did we have the simple, yet tasty Big Bacon Classic, we now had the Baconator. The Baconator added lots more bacon and cheese and, of course, the edgy (and ridiculous) name. The Baconator was too much. No longer did we have the subtleties of the Bacon Classic….now we we were being slammed over the head by it’s 100 lb. gorilla relation.
All of this brings us to Wendy’s new bacon-topped offering: the Bacon Deluxe.
The advertising for the Bacon Deluxe promises “Thick applewood-smoked bacon,” which, after ordering a Bacon Deluxe double burger, I saw to be true. I ordered my burger with just bacon, cheese, and lettuce. When I took the burger out of the bag, I thought they had made a mistake. The foil-wrapped burger looked very tall, as if the condiments were really packed on. After unwrapping it, I saw that the height was due to a few dense and thick pieces of bacon were piled up on top of the burger, but under the lettuce (!).
The bacon overwhelmed everything else on the burger. It was too thick to actually enhance anything. Quite frankly, it simply dominated everything. Its hulking presence even made the burger slightly difficult to consume. Any juiciness or flavor from the actual burger was completely negated by this topping.
In my mind, I began to reminisce about the old Big Bacon Classic and its tasty, friendly toppings. But, I guess we live in a different world these days, as those are concepts marketers seem to have forgotten.
