Diet or Marketing Doo-Doo?
Taco Bell Drive-Thru Diet?
Well, as most businesses are not only wrangling through a tough economic down turn, they are also having to address issues related to their products and changing consumer tastes and preferences. Manufacturers must deal with an ever increasing “green” attitude and food service is taking on the consumers desire to address health related issues in regards to the perception of their products.
For some time now Pepsi Co. has positioned their Taco Bell menu items as a low-cost alternative and marketing mostly toward a younger audience. The teen, college aged, and young adults. The demographic that tends to have less disposable income, and a tendency to eat whenever the urge hits them, especially at odd or late hours. With many items under a dollar and pushing the fact that the drive thru is open very late. This has worked but failed, understandably, to attract a larger audience of those who have moved past that phase of their lives and are more sensitive to what they, and their children eat.
Recently Taco Bell launched an interesting campaign. The Taco Bell Drive-Thru Diet. The spot showcases Christine Dougherty who says that she lost 54lbs. over two years by making a few Taco Bell items her fast-food choice and watching all of the other things that she ate. The spot openly states that the “Drive Thru Diet” is not a weight loss program, these items have 150-340 calories, and that they are not low-calorie foods. They also point out that Christine’s exceptional results also entailed basing her diet on an average of 1250 calories per day. Obviously, the legal team was deeply involved in this campaign in hopes of avoiding the need for their epic involvement after the launch of the campaign if they did not make these points well known.
While many seem to be taking the perspective that this is an evil fast food chain trying to sell tacos to those trying to lose weight, I see it more as a campaign that leans more toward a positioning and public relations move. She does not mention that she could buy them with the change in the ashtray of her car, or that she was able to buy them at the drive-thru at 2 a.m. after a night of “clubbing”. This is a totally different angle for Taco Bell and not the one that a lot of people are seeing it as.
The buzz being generated is huge. I doubt that Taco Bell saw this as a SUBWAY-esque program to get people to really include their products in a diet regimen. That is insane even when brain-storming for campaign ideas.
Consumers are more educated than ever before. They know better. This is a fact that so many marketers must address these days. It is harder than ever to get a message across and to make that message meaningful. Perhaps this campaign is not so much geared toward someone dieting, but more of a quest to let people know that they are not as “bad” as you may have already thought. Marketing involves much more than advertising, it takes positioning, and public relations in the mix too. At times it takes that advertising to get those other messages delivered.
Tod O’Brien
One Eyed Dog Productions
www.oneeyeddog.com
Well, as most businesses are not only wrangling through a tough economic down turn, they are also having to address issues related to their products and changing consumer tastes and preferences. Manufacturers must deal with an ever increasing “green” attitude and food service is taking on the consumers desire to address health related issues in regards to the perception of their products.
For some time now Pepsi Co. has positioned their Taco Bell menu items as a low-cost alternative and marketing mostly toward a younger audience. The teen, college aged, and young adults. The demographic that tends to have less disposable income, and a tendency to eat whenever the urge hits them, especially at odd or late hours. With many items under a dollar and pushing the fact that the drive thru is open very late. This has worked but failed, understandably, to attract a larger audience of those who have moved past that phase of their lives and are more sensitive to what they, and their children eat.
Recently Taco Bell launched an interesting campaign. The Taco Bell Drive-Thru Diet. The spot showcases Christine Dougherty who says that she lost 54lbs. over two years by making a few Taco Bell items her fast-food choice and watching all of the other things that she ate. The spot openly states that the “Drive Thru Diet” is not a weight loss program, these items have 150-340 calories, and that they are not low-calorie foods. They also point out that Christine’s exceptional results also entailed basing her diet on an average of 1250 calories per day. Obviously, the legal team was deeply involved in this campaign in hopes of avoiding the need for their epic involvement after the launch of the campaign if they did not make these points well known.
While many seem to be taking the perspective that this is an evil fast food chain trying to sell tacos to those trying to lose weight, I see it more as a campaign that leans more toward a positioning and public relations move. She does not mention that she could buy them with the change in the ashtray of her car, or that she was able to buy them at the drive-thru at 2 a.m. after a night of “clubbing”. This is a totally different angle for Taco Bell and not the one that a lot of people are seeing it as.
The buzz being generated is huge. I doubt that Taco Bell saw this as a SUBWAY-esque program to get people to really include their products in a diet regimen. That is insane even when brain-storming for campaign ideas.
Consumers are more educated than ever before. They know better. This is a fact that so many marketers must address these days. It is harder than ever to get a message across and to make that message meaningful. Perhaps this campaign is not so much geared toward someone dieting, but more of a quest to let people know that they are not as “bad” as you may have already thought. Marketing involves much more than advertising, it takes positioning, and public relations in the mix too. At times it takes that advertising to get those other messages delivered.
Tod O’Brien
One Eyed Dog Productions
www.oneeyeddog.com
posted by One Eyed Dog Productions at 11:35 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home