The quick ser­vice chain Wendy’s has launched a mul­ti-chan­nel effort to sup­port lim­it­ed-time pulled pork menu items under the hash­tag #BBQ4Merica, but only one of four videos released so far has decent trac­tion and the campaign’s per­haps most intrigu­ing com­po­nent, an actu­al White House peti­tion, has fall­en 99,650 sig­na­tures short of its 100,000-signature goal.

Wendy’s has sev­er­al new lim­it­ed-time pulled pork menu items and, as a result, is try­ing to posi­tion itself as some­thing of a bar­be­cue mas­ter in a series of #BBQ4Merica videos. In doing so, the brand has opt­ed for a humor­ous, faux PSA-style with mul­ti­ple celebri­ties to address the “semi-altru­is­tic cause” of “bar­beque inac­ces­si­bil­i­ty,” which it says affects 92 per­cent of the U.S. pop­u­la­tion.

The videos, as well as relat­ed GIFs, are avail­able on Wendy’s new #BBQ4Merica Tum­blr. But do Amer­i­can con­sumers real­ly care about bar­be­cue inac­ces­si­bil­i­ty? Even if that mes­sage comes from the Karate Kid him­self?

For his part, Ben Plomion, vice pres­i­dent of mar­ket­ing at online mar­ket­ing com­pa­ny Chango, finds the con­tent on the #BBQ4Merica hub lack­ing.

“Tum­blr can be a great way for brands to dis­trib­ute con­tent pro­vid­ed you under­stand and can work with its design lim­i­ta­tions,” he says. But, he notes, if the brand is aim­ing to reach con­sumers “else­where, such as through their Twit­ter or YouTube cam­paigns, it can work.”

In addi­tion, he ques­tions how exact­ly Wendy’s will use the data it mines to effec­tive­ly engage its audi­ence.

A Wendy’s rep was not avail­able for com­ment.

Per a press release, Wendy’s has enlist­ed the likes of actors Alfon­so Ribeiro and Ralph Mac­chio, as well as pro wrestling Hall of Famer “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, to “[unite] Amer­i­cans under one cause and hash­tag – #BBQ4Merica – to help raise aware­ness of the ‘bar­be­cuil­ly deprived’ while pro­vid­ing access to qual­i­ty bar­be­cue” with Wendy’s pulled pork prod­ucts, the brand says in a press release.

Accord­ing to the release, Ribeiro and Mac­chio, who are res­i­dents of the “bar­be­cue-deprived” cities of Los Ange­les and New York, join Austin, a native Tex­an, in videos that are also avail­able on Wendy’s Face­book, Twit­ter, and YouTube chan­nels. The first video fea­tur­ing all three spokes­men has 1.6 mil­lion views as of Octo­ber 12. The indi­vid­ual videos have decid­ed­ly less.

The video fea­tur­ing Mac­chio, how­ev­er, observes 91 per­cent of the nation’s bar­beque is locat­ed in states with just 8 per­cent of its pop­u­la­tion, thus mak­ing a fair­ly strong case for Wendy’s “semi-altru­is­tic cause.”

Kristin Kovn­er, pres­i­dent of mar­ket­ing firm K‑Squared Strate­gies, says Wendy’s choice of celebri­ties “was spot on — these are celebri­ties with large, cult fol­low­ings on social media, whose fans will sure­ly spread the word and con­tribute to Wendy’s Tum­blr, but they also live in the loca­tions being tar­get­ed as ‘bar­be­cue-deprived,’ which adds a lay­er of authen­tic­i­ty to the satire.”

Ribeiro, a con­tes­tant on this sea­son of “Danc­ing with the Stars”, has 128,000 Twit­ter fol­low­ers. Mac­chio, who, coin­ci­den­tal­ly, was a for­mer con­tes­tant, has 140,000.

In addi­tion, Kovn­er says the use of humor adds to the over­all impact.

“The tongue-in-cheek, melo­dra­mat­ic tone of the con­tent makes an absurd premise – being ‘bar­be­cue deprived’ – tran­scend par­o­dy, and become utter­ly sur­re­al,” she said.

But is this enough to whet con­sumers’ appetites for Wendy’s bar­be­cue?

To push the effort, the brand held the “first-ever, 24-hour bar­be­cue-themed Tweet-a-Thon” on Octo­ber 8.

“As a nod to old-school telethons, con­sumers can join the cause on Twit­ter using the hash­tag #BBQ4Merica to band togeth­er to meet hourly goals and unlock sur­pris­es,” Wendy’s says in the release. “Ribeiro will also respond in real-time to con­sumer tweets and act out spe­cif­ic bar­be­cue-relat­ed requests.”

In addi­tion, Wendy’s is encour­ag­ing fans to sign an offi­cial online peti­tion to the White House to ask for a Pres­i­den­tial Procla­ma­tion to make bar­be­cue a Nation­al Dish of Amer­i­ca. The brand is hop­ing to raise 100,000 sig­na­tures by Octo­ber 19, but had only 350 sig­na­tures as of this writ­ing.

What do you think of Wendy’s tac­tic in its #BBQ4Merica cam­paign? Is it enough to gen­er­ate pos­i­tive buzz?