ADVERTISING : Taco Bell TV Spots Put Emphasis on Action, Adventure and Appetite
They won’t win any Oscars, but some action mini-flicks have just hit town.
Irvine-based Taco Bell has just started airing adventure spots with the sort of footage that would appeal to the likes of Pancho Villa or Dirty Harry.
The fast-food chain’s “Make a Run for the Border” TV advertising campaign features 11 stunt-filled commercials that run 10 to 60 seconds. According to Taco Bell, they “take an average lunch decision and turn it into an adventure” that races through the Arizona desert.
One spot, for instance, opens with two young city workers longing for something to eat. They find themselves in a fantasy world where they are clinging to a cattle car door and heading for a collision with a railway signal light.
In a split-second decision, they jump, landing on top of a horse trailer that promptly becomes unhitched. But the doors burst open, letting the heroes mount galloping ponies and ride to the nearest Taco Bell.
The message: No matter how you get there, it’s always worth the trip.
“The spots are designed to capture the excitement of a visit to Taco Bell rather than other fast-food places,” said Jim Walker, senior vice president/executive creative director with Tracy-Locke/Los Angeles, which created the spots.
The action is all part of the great Taco War that has erupted now that Newport Beach restaurateur Anwar Soliman has purchased Taco Bell’s arch-competitors--Del Taco and Naugles--and plans to combine them into one chain.
Taco Bell, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, has more than 2,700 restaurants--about 640 in California alone--and is the largest Mexican fast-food chain in the country. It surpasses by far Del Taco and Naugles’ combined total of 370-plus restaurants, mostly in the West.
