This case is appropriate to Promo & Activation because it hinged on the ability to activate an established audience of people and engage them to tell their friends to download our new mobile ordering application. Specifically, we targeted people who followed Taco Bell’s social web presence by blacking out all Taco Bell’s social media accounts. This created mystery and intrigue, drawing people to spread the word that Taco Bell was abandoning social media. Once we had a preponderance of people’s attention, we announced with a single message that the new way to Taco Bell was by downloading and activating our mobile ordering app.

Our objective was to activate downloads of Taco Bell’s new mobile ordering app by generating mass awareness and social conversation among Taco Bell’s most engaged fans across the social web. How could we get them to notice our news and motivate them to tell the rest of the world? The idea, a simple deprivation strategy: take away what they love most—Taco Bell’s witty social presence—to create mystery and intrigue around launch. The execution: black out Taco Bell’s social media accounts for 72 hours and reveal that the only way to Taco Bell was in its mobile app.

The results blew away campaign forecasts and benchmarks:

- Over 300K people downloaded the Taco Bell app in 2 days; 2.6 million by the campaign’s end

- The app ranked #1 in App Store Food + Drink category, beating out Starbucks

- 2B earned media impressions achieved in 3 days

- Fans clamored to know where Taco Bell had disappeared to and why

To introduce a new behavior, we ran an activation focused on our existing social media audience. We thought their fervor for the brand would cause reaction when we cut off transmission and that’s exactly what happened.

10/28 (12am PT): Taco Bell replaces all profile pictures with black squares and removes all content possible across social media + digital channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, YouTube, Google+, Vine, Snapchat, and tacobell.com).

10/28 (9am PT): Taco Bell reveals the message: “The New Way to Taco Bell Isn’t on (location), it’s #OnlyInTheApp. Download now (download link).” This message ran for three days with the support of paid social media, targeted specifically to Taco Bell fans and those with a high propensity to download mobile apps.

10/31: Blackout ends. Taco Bell launches new content with social influencers explaining the features and benefits of the app.

The plan was not adapted or changed at any stage.