Denny’s Hilariously Fails at Attempt to Appeal to Gamer Culture

Denny’s tried to dive into gamer culture by appealing to fans of the new Nintendo Switch SNES controller and failed on a really epic scale. On the heels of the long-awaited launch on SNES games on the Switch,  the restaurant chain tried to join the conversation.

Not only can people play classic SNES games on Nintendo’s newest console but soon, they’ll be able to use controllers designed to be a callback to the Super Nintendo system. It was here where someone in Denny’s marketing department took a misstep.

Taking to Twitter, someone wanted to show off their photoshop skills. They posted a picture of the SNES Switch controller edited so the select and start buttons were sausages.

love the new @NintendoAmerica SNES buttons, what a clever way to pull up a menu. pic.twitter.com/IxOyyzcxeV

— Denny's (@DennysDiner) September 5, 2019

The intent here was clear. To some degree, the play on the word menu works. The placement of the breakfast sausages even works … kind of.

this is poop, dennis

— Nanopixi (@Nanopixi) September 5, 2019

The problem with this approach was, unfortunately for Denny’s, pointed out quickly. More than one Twitter user felt the sausages looked like poop.

Denny those are poops

— Anna Stith ?️‍? (@seventoes) September 5, 2019

The other problem is once the similarity is pointed out, it’s hard to unsee it.

Equating Denny’s with poop can’t be good news for the restaurant chain. Likewise, equating the select and start buttons on the Nintendo Switch’s SNES controller isn’t great for Nintendo.

The good news for the video game company is Denny’s is catching all the flack for this one. As they should.

Pancakes on the round buttons would have been a better choice than poop

— kittyhouseknife ? TwitchCon (@kittyhouseknife) September 5, 2019

You almost feel sorry for the restaurant chain. Not everyone can have the social media chops of a Wendy’s or Popeyes.

The company’s Twitter account isn’t nearly as active and when it is, tends to dabble in “dad jokes”. The problem is they tried to go somewhere they shouldn’t and tried to rope in the gamer community while doing so.

Even worse is the company has done zero to try and fix the mistake. Instead, Denny’s learned this week, the important difference of being laughed at, rather than laughed with.