TACO BELL

TACOS
IRL

Taco Bell wanted to make National Taco Day global, but most people aren’t familiar with tacos. We turned the taco emoji everyone had on their phones into a free IRL taco.

 
KFC has 27,000 restaurants outside of the United States. Taco Bell? Just 1,100. Taco Bell desperately need to build brand awareness and taco awareness internationally.

No matter where you live, you’re probably on your phone a lot. Which means you already have a taco in your hand – in the form of the emoji. For National International Taco Day, we built a global mobile-first campaign across Taco Bell’s 23 markets, letting anyone text us the 🌮 for a free taco.

A simple emoji delivered the brand’s highest weekly international sales to date.

          


Cheers to the UK market for posting this tutorial ahead of the promotion.

  
Sticking with the international theme, we partnered with a Swedish animation company to create more assets for markets to roll out on social.

  
Some markets, like Spain and Indonesia, went beyond the templatized assets we created for them and went wild with their interpretations of the visual identity.

    
We encouraged markets to partner with local Gen Z content creators to get the word out on TikTok.PRESS
Muse By Clios: Crunch Time! Taco Bell Goes Big for National Taco Day
Mirror UK: Taco Bell offer free tacos in 71 stores to celebrate International Taco Day

Made at Deutsch LA.