To celebrate the launch of the new Steak Doubledilla, Taco Bell Canada teamed up with Airbnb to offer fans a SteakCation: the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sleep over at a real Taco Bell. We teased our fans with posts alluding to the promotion. And as soon as we unveiled the actual Airbnb listing, thousands of entries poured in. Ultimately, four friends were selected and checked in to the Taco Bell Airbnb. The restaurant was outfitted with all the comforts of home, plus some custom Taco Bell amenities — a branded nightlight, a “Doubledilla Dreamin’” sleep mask, soap in the shape of cheese, and more. They even had their own personal Taco Bell Hop to cater to their every whim. The evening featured a 90-minute Facebook live stream so that fans across Canada could get a glimpse of the Taco Bell Airbnb, and of course, a recap video released afterwards.

Our PR plan began on October 6, 2016. We built awareness around the Steak Doubledilla and SteakCation experience by generating National media coverage through compelling materials targeting key food and lifestyle media/bloggers. To further drive awareness and generate additional storytelling opportunities, we leveraged Taco Bell Canada brand spokespeople and program assets within outreach. In addition to the press release that we developed and distributed, as part of our proactive outreach, we targeted local food/lifestyle targets, as well as Canadian trade marketing & industry publications across Toronto and National. We also created media kits and distributed them to top-tier lifestyle and food Toronto targets. Our media kits contained customized Taco Bell white SteakCation robes and slippers, coupons to try the Steak Doubledilla, a Taco Bell Canada gift card, a hand-written note to the journalist, and various media materials.

The SteakCation was an overwhelming success and Taco Bell’s most successful product launch of the year. News media ate it up with coverage on radio, print, online and TV. In total, the SteakCation netted Taco Bell 422 million earned media impressions with 155 pieces of coverage. This included such high profile media outlets as Mashable, Time, Fortune, Huffington Post, eOnline, Travel & Leisure, TeenVogue, Creativity Online – just to name a few. And importantly, virtually all the news coverage mentioned the Steak Doubledilla as the hero reason behind the stunt, giving it a massive boost in awareness. And at the register, the SteakCation blew away sales estimates, leading to a 15.8% increase in revenue.

As a result of our successful earned media campaign, we were able to greatly exceed the 1 to 2 million impression goal and achieved a cost per contact of $0.0004. The social coverage secured from #SteakCation was 35.8 million impressions.

Through our planning and execution efforts, all measurable goals were met or exceeded in the roll-out of this program.

Target Impressions: 1 to 2 million. Actual Impressions: 422 million.

Target Positive Sentiment: 75%. Actual Positive Sentiment: 97%.

Target Key Message Inclusion: 75%. Actual Key Message Inclusion: 100%.

Target Brand Mention: 75%. Actual Brand Mention: 100%.

Target Cost Per Contact: $0.02. Actual Cost Per Contact: $0.0004