CLIENT: Taco Bell
PR AGENCY: Cohn & Wolfe
CAMPAIGN TYPE: Media Relations
TIMEFRAME: August-October 2003
BUDGET: $250,000
When California's historic gubernatorial recall election was
announced in August 2003, it seemed ripe for the kind of promotion
at which Taco Bell, with its mantra of "Think Outside The
Bun," excelled. After all, the wacky election ---whose candidates
included a porn star and one-time child star Gary Coleman--already
was arousing national attention with talk radio, political shows
and a column in the Los Angeles Times named "Recall
Madness." Plus no other companies were involved.
A key aim in tying Taco Bell to the election was to generate
talk among Taco Bell's target audiences: heavy fast-food users
(HFFUs) and older infrequent customers called lapse users.
Competitive value-oriented burger chains and "quick casual"
restaurants had been eating into the chain's core customer base,
and PR was one way to reverse such trends. Research by Taco Bell
and its PR agency Cohn & Wolfe (CW) showed that while
the younger target audience was more influenced by radio, and
lifestyle and entertainment news sources, older audiences relied
more on newspapers and TV news. The trick would be to engage
both.
"The challenge was to find ways of creating brand awareness that
would also feature products," says Sally George, manager of PR at
Taco Bell. So, at the next "Buzz Team" powwow --weekly meetings to
find fun ways to tie into world events--Taco Bell and CW created
the idea of a "Taco Poll" ballot that would choose leading
candidates and pair them up with popular menu items to persuade
Californian consumers to "Put Your Vote Where Your Mouth Is."
The aim was to put a humorous twist on the speculation about the
outcome of the election and to encourage customers to "buy votes."
Hence, a Beef Crunchy Taco counted as a vote for Arnold
Schwarzenegger, a Chicken Soft Taco was a vote for Gov. Gray Davis
and a Grilled Stuft Burrito represented a vote for the other 134
candidates. The campaign was also designed to build on the famous
tagline plus generate local, regional and national news.
"We thought this a fun and clever way to tie in with the
election, create buzz and reinforce the brand," George says. "Our
ad slogan, 'Think Outside The Bun,' positions us as different and
unique."
There was a slight problem: The team had just one week in which
to pull it off.
The strategy was twofold: Leverage the national obsession with
the California recall to gain publicity for the "Think Outside The
Bun" tactics by Taco Bell and focus on the two leading candidates
to incite responses from the other participants. With that in mind,
the team swung into action by first taking out full-page ads (which
Taco dubbed "publitizements") in the Los Angeles Times and
the Sacramento Bee, stating "Who Says You Can't Buy Votes?"
to announce they were inviting Californians to vote with their
mouths.
The initial reaction "was very positive," George says. "It
fitted in well with the tone of the election, and over 100
candidates and the media had a lot of fun with it." One week later,
overwhelming demand by the media added to the Poll candidate Cruz
Bustamente as a Chalupa. Designed to run for seven weeks, results
were tallied weekly on "Taco Tuesdays" and released to the
media.
To launch the Taco Poll, CW came up with the idea of offering
the online news source Drudge Report an exclusive. In
addition to the full-page ads, the Drudge spot helped to plug the
story to the media. CW also pitched the story to nationally
syndicated political/talk shows and radio, and it sent a letter and
the ad to all gubernatorial candidates. Weekly news releases with
the results were distributed across the wires and updated on the
Taco Bell Web site to sustain the momentum. The agency also
conducted numerous radio interviews. "The key was coming up with
ways of keeping it fresh and keeping the media interested," says
George.
During the last week of the Poll, CW invited all candidates to
share their views via the "Taco Bell California Gubernatorial Taco
Debate" Web site. This allowed candidates to get their messages out
before Election Day, and it was announced via press releases. CW
also contacted candidates directly and gave them campaign buttons.
To kick off the debate, CW had comedian Ben Stein provide a
question to lend credibility to the site. As a result, more than 30
candidates participated, providing answers; topics included taxes,
car registration fees, education and motivation.
The Taco Poll culminated with Schwarzenegger winning the Poll,
which was announced via another full-page ad in USA Today
just before Election Day, stating "Ahhhnold Wins!" CW then pitched
the final Poll results to Reuters, which wrote the story the
day before the election.
As a result, CW generated more than 330 million gross
impressions, totaling more than $1,150,000 in media value. Hits
included the Associated Press, CNBC, CNN,
drudgereport.com, Fox News, the Los Angeles
Times, MSNBC, Newsweek and Reuters. As for
return on investment (ROI), with a media value of $1.1 million and
a budget of $250,000, the Taco Bell Taco Poll generated a return of
4:1. The overriding lesson? Playing off topical (and somewhat
unusual) news is a winning formula.
As for steering back those straying HHFS and lapse users, "It's
very hard to judge what works and what doesn't," George says. "It's
tough to make that correlation, but it was on the radar not only in
California, but also throughout the country. A key component of the
program was to come in and vote with your mouth, so it drove people
into the stores."
Contact: Sally George, 949.863.3915, [email protected]