Taco Bell Cooks Up Free-Lunch Marketing Blitz : Restaurants: Nationwide promotion next week seeks to gain fans for ‘light’ menu, on which chain is pinning hopes.

In a costly promotion aimed at fattening revenue, Taco Bell Corp. said Wednesday that it is planning an advertising blitz and food giveaway to boost its Border Lights brand of low-fat tacos and burritos.

A $3.5-million network television advertising campaign will promote the three-hour free lunch at the company’s 4,500 outlets nationwide on Monday. The chain expects to give away 5 million low-fat tacos and burritos--products on which Taco Bell is pinning many of its hopes for growth.

The gimmick is expected to be popular enough that the chain will shift all 800 employees in its Irvine headquarters to its Southern California restaurants from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. to handle the expected frenzy for free food.

The promotion comes at a crucial time for the PepsiCo subsidiary. After years as the value-pricing leader and darling of the fast-food industry, Taco Bell’s operating profit fell 5% for the first quarter compared to a year earlier; sales at stores in operation at least a year dropped 2%.

Part of the blame for that soft performance was leveled at the costs of introducing the Border Lights products in January. About 100 million low-fat tacos and burritos have been sold since then.

A Taco Bell spokesman declined to state the expected cost of the free-food promotion. Border Lights menu items range from basic tacos and burritos at 69 cents each to the Burrito Supreme at $1.59.

Analysts say Taco Bell needs a high-impact promotion to reinvigorate sales. Doug Christopher, analyst for the Crowell Weedon & Co. brokerage in Los Angeles, said the company has provided little advertising support to the brand since introducing it.

“They are home-run products. They still have to resolve the question of media or promotion,” Christopher said.

Food giveaways are rare--usually confined to tests--but Taco Bell needs to entice more potential customers to try its new line of products, said Janet Lowder, a restaurant consultant based in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Even if the advertising and food costs top $5 million, the promotion will hardly send Taco Bell into ruin. The company’s operating income for the first quarter alone was $31.9 million.

“It’s a gamble in terms of the people you could get,” Lowder said. “In L.A., you could get a lot of homeless people.”

Taco Bell spokesman Jonathan Blum said customers can order any of seven low-fat menu items, from the basic taco to the Seven-Layer Burrito. But each customer will get only one free item.

The promotion will not be a total money loser for Taco Bell; many customers are sure to order drinks--maybe even a regular taco or burrito for comparison.