Taco Time Takes on Time Wasters in New Campaign from DNA
Armed with hot sauce bottles in their holsters, the Taco Time Time Squad – three time-obsessed taco lovers - are roaming the drive-thru in search of Taco Time customers who are wasting precious minutes by waiting in line. Their mission: To encourage customers to order ahead by downloading the Taco Time NW app.
Introduced in a new series of online videos created by Seattle agency DNA, the Taco Time Time Squad want to help customers make the most of every second. The Taco Time NW app not only lets them order ahead and save those precious minutes, but it also has built-in rewards that help consumers save money.
“At Taco Time we make everything fresh so it can take a little longer than typical quick service restaurants,” explained Gretchen Weidemann, director of marketing and advertising at Taco Time Northwest. “We were looking for a way to educate our customers in a fun way about the benefits of downloading our app and ordering ahead. This campaign supports our marketing effort with a clever stunt that’s extended into pre-roll ads, online videos, television, and the retail environment. It’s a lighthearted way of highlighting those moments when you can always be doing something better with your time.”
Taco Time NW is hoping that the campaign will drive an increase in online ordering through its app and website. The Time Squad videos were filmed on site during a live stunt at a local Taco Time in Seattle with real customers, who while waiting in line, were surprised by members of the Time Squad who pointed out the time they were wasting and ‘wrote them up’ with a fake citation that included a code good for a free Soft Taco once they used the Taco Time Northwest App to Order Ahead.
“It’s not every day that you get pulled over in the drive-thru by someone riding a Segway and wielding hot sauce on their utility belt. But we wanted to shake people out of their complacency around waiting in lines and get them to download the app so they can skip the line next time,” explained Steve Williams, executive creative director at DNA. “We cast improv actors as our squad, gave them some key talking points, then let them loose on real customers for an entire day.”
The campaign was produced by DNA’s in-house production company Petting Zoo. The team created several pieces of digital and social content, including a teaser video in the days leading up to the stunt, a 2-minute recap video and contextually aware Youtube pre-roll ads that tell viewers that “the only thing worse than waiting for your video is waiting in line for tacos.” 30-second versions of the stunt will run in broadcast TV as well.
The Time Squad appears in point-of-sale and on Taco Time NW’s web site to round out the campaign.
