Opium Works was appointed to build a coherent and interactive presence for world-renowned chain restaurant Taco Bell. What began for Taco Bell in 2010 - with assistance to their in-house digital marketing activations - was launched in full force in December 2011. Our team implemented a marketing strategy that would entice the younger audience. Attracting the millennial attention—and finding creative ways to accommodate their new behaviors, tastes and routines—wasn’t easy. But we aimed to inform consumers about the tantalising, Mexican-flavoured products, increase store traffic, maximize reach and ultimately make Taco Bell… cool!
Introducing this poptastic world of Taco Bell, our first activation centered around Facebook and micro–games. Our first Facebook game for Taco Bell was Mexican Challenge. Users were invited via Facebook Ads to enter the game and likethe page in order to win coupons for the then new Taco Bell store in Mall of Cyprus. Users could play the Taco Bell Slot Machine, and win products. In order to get more turns, the user could invite friends. The results were outstanding, with more than 10,000 users playing the game, producing more than 25,000 coupons. The redemption rate was indeed huge with the customer reporting a 25% redemption rate. The second micro–game we came up with was entitled, Memory.
Users were invited via Facebook Ads to enter the game and like our page in order to win coupons and the grand prize: an “iPad”. The game was based on the simple match 2 memory game, which is widely known by most users. On each tile, we had Taco Bell products, so that users could learn and memorise our key items. Upon successful completion of the game, they were also enabled to play a third micro–game, entitled Spin the wheel. It enabled users to win coupons and enter the draw for the grand prize. We had more than 12,000 participants and that aided in a significant increase to Facebook page likes.
Our most successful Facebook game for Taco Bell was Taco Bell Crash. Based on the very popular game of Candy Crush, we developed a game that was optimised for all tablets and mimicked the full process of the Candy Crush game. The game itself consisted of nine levels of difficulty and the objective is to match the pictures, which were again Taco Bell products. The user had the opportunity to share their score and invite friends to play, earning them more points for the game. The app was optimised for all tablets. We had 16,000 participants and each player averaged 7 levels.
In 2014, our team was appointed to promote the opening of the 1st Taco Bell flagship restaurant in Cyprus. From running competitions to guess the new location to sharing images depicting the architecture of the restaurant - these sparked the anticipated social media firestorm ahead of the big reveal and set off a chain reaction. To further rally excitement, we introduced DAD Jokes. Two well-known personas had to tell dad jokes to each other. Video shooting took place at Themistokli Dervi with an open event to audiences.
Following a similar structure to DAD Jokes, our team also created “What's in the Box Challenge” and invited, once again, two local celebrities to put their hand in one of each side of the box and try to guess the content of the box, without looking. Ultimately, Opium Works crafted content that is relatable to Cypriot culture, while maintaining the brand vision and tagline “Sometimes you gotta Live Más!”
We also came up with the EPIC Face Swap Challenge. At the time Face Swap it was the most popular filter on Snapchat and we took advantage of it. The competition was simple, fans had to send us via Snapchat their Face Swap photo to enter the draw to win a Polaroid Cube. Every fan that submitted a photo received a coupon for a FREE meal at Taco Bell. The competition ran for 3 weeks and it was the most successful Snapchat competition in Cyprus. The main target audience was teenagers and we managed to achieve 0.66% CTR for 13-17 yrs old and over 1K post engagements.
Pizza Crunchwrap was the best opportunity to use a casual approach in both texts and visuals in order to meet Taco Bell’s goal: to be the No.1 Brand that people would love! Our target groups were especially the younger ones, as they match perfectly the Taco Bell’s spirit! We recommended interactive, engaging, live mass and viral posts based on the “Pizza” concept so we could attract young people to visit Taco Bell Cyprus restaurants, by showing the friendly atmosphere of the restaurants. The teasing period with Stay Tuned visuals and videos, was very successful – we consider it to be our secret ingredient! When the product was officially released, we launched new Ads with product placements, in order to keep the hype up.
We also generated key thematic units. We introduced Educational Quotes with the aim to inform and educate the relevant target audiences. We recognised 11 popular phrases and quotes that were trending across social media channels by teenagers and we combined them with Taco Bell products. We reached 2,100 people, 73 unique engaged users and 0.02% engagement with almost no spending. In addition to this – and in a successful attempt to sympathise with Taco Bell's young crowd – we created School Memes. The School Memes were a combination of trending memes on Social Media with daily local phrases that students tend to use.
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