Ever since Oreo jumped on the blackout at this year's Super Bowl to produce the popular social-media ad, "You can still dunk in the dark", brands have been aiming to react quickly to the day's news.
While it doesn't always work, as we found out during the birth of the Royal baby, Denny's Restaurants scored a hit Tuesday after Apple released the iPhone 5S in a number of unusual colors, including gold. Denny's gently mocking Twitter ad showed the word "Pancake" in the standard Apple iPhone font, adding an Apple-style "S" in a box. The tagline, over a picture of a short stack with bright-gold butter, said, "Always available in golden."
See also: Why Apple Unveiled 2 iPhones This Year
Admittedly, Denny's had a bit more time to prepare for this possibility than Oreo did. After all, the gold iPhone rumor has been floating around the Internet for weeks. Still, it's risky to prepare an ad entirely based on product rumors. What's more, Denny's recently goofed in its social-media advertising, making light of the NSA scandal.
It was also hard not to go too far in the direction of self-serving snark, as Apple's smartphone rivals did:
"Real gangsters don't use gold phones." pic.twitter.com/yurtFf3TML
— Nokia UK (@nokia_uk) September 10, 2013
Did Denny's strike the right balance with its ad? Are event-specific Twitter pictures the new frontier in advertising? Give us your take in the comments.
Image: Denny's Restaurants