Taco Bell brings its social swagger north of the border
In the U.S. Taco Bell is one of the buzziest brands on the social web. It has attracted mountains of attention through social stunts, like sending custom branded rings to social
savvy fans and debuting its crunchy burrito on Snapchat.
Now, with the long awaited launch of Doritos Locos Tacos (DLT) in Canada, the Canadian brand has scored its first major social hit. Before the product debuted on Sept. 1, Taco Bell Canada and its creative agency Grip, surprised Canadians who had complained on Twitter about the lack of DLTs, by laser printing their tweets on the tacos they craved and then filmed their reactions.
The resulting video received more than 100,000 views and was recut as a TV spot.
David Vivenes, chief marketing officer for Taco Bell Canada’s parent company, Yum Brands, says the brand decided to announce the product via online video distributed through social because the conversation was already happening there.
“Our core fanbase is young adults and [social] is not simply a medium of awareness for them. It’s a medium to have ongoing dialogue with brands,” he says.
Like its U.S. counterpart, the brand is also experimenting with less mainstream platforms like Snapchat and Vine. Most recently, Taco Bell’s community manager, Grip social strategist Patrick Tomasso, has been using Snapchat to send behind-the-scenes photos from the video shoot and back-to-school messages to fans.
“We saw a lot of our followers in our key demo using that platform. We saw learning from the U.S. and that they’d done well,” Tomasso says of Snapchat. “It’s a personal level. You’re having a one-way dialogue. It’s intimate and your fans feel closer to you as a brand.”
