Denny’s turns its most-prized tweets into NFTs for charity

Earlier in March, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sold his first-ever tweet as a non-fungible token, or NFT, for $2.9 million, with the proceeds going to Give Directly’s Africa Response fund.
Now Denny’s, known for hopping on the latest memes and cultural conversations on Twitter, is taking a page out of Dorsey’s NFT playbook and using its most-popular tweets to piggyback on what has become the latest popular marketing trend in an effort to raise money for charity.
Denny’s, which has a following of nearly 471,000 on Twitter, began selling its tweets as NFTs this morning, starting with its most-retweeted post of all time: “Zoom in on the syrup,” the brand’s addition to a popular meme from 2017 which encouraged followers to “zoom in” on different parts of a photo. The tweet has received 230,000 retweets, 359,000 likes and 4,400 comments. The brand’s Twitter account header photo now has an image of the tweet in a frame, as though on display at a museum.
“Denny’s is incredibly involved with its fan base on Twitter and renowned for capitalizing on cultural moments,” said a Denny’s spokesperson. “The NFT trend is growing, and the demand is clearly there for owning a piece of social content, particularly content by a brand you love and engage with on a regular basis.”
All proceeds from the tweets are going to No Kid Hungry, an organization that provides meals to kids across the U.S. and Denny’s long-time charity partner. Other popular Denny’s tweets are up for bids, including a 2018 charmer: “Pepper is just emo salt” and a 2020 post in which the brand contemplates on how to pronounce ketchup.
Denny’s is even tagging brands that can relate to its past tweets, such as Kraft Heinz and the band Dashboard Confessional, to have them share the fundraising effort.
“We’re all about taking these moments and using them to feed to people in a way that is true to our brand, and No Kid Hungry is an organization that we are invested in supporting in any way we can,” says the spokesperson. “For us, this is a win-win; we can raise money for No Kid Hungry, while serving up a piece of our history to fans—and even maybe other brands—who want it.
”To get bids on the tweets, Denny’s is using “Valuables,” a digital platform that allows for buying and selling of tweets, the same platform Dorsey used. Denny’s worked with ad agency EP+Co on the activation which, from ideation to execution, took only a few days, the spokesperson said.
The effort follows other brands that have begun using NFT technology to generate fan engagement and raise money for charities. Taco Bell, Pizza Hut Canada and Charmin have all created their own digital art and have sold the blockchain-enabled goods through various platforms, donating proceeds to charities. The branded art so far are seeing returns: Taco Bell sold its art for 2 cents which then saw $20,000 on the resale market.
The real question now is: Will followers pay to own a piece of a brand’s social feed?