Taco Bell pushes all the right buttons

Today’s launch of a smartphone app that offers customizable ordering and mobile payment would have been a big enough win for Taco Bell, but the marketing and PR boost it got from its brilliant social-media campaign only bolsters the impact the rollout will have for the quick-service chain. All day Taco Bell’s social-media profiles have been blacked out, with all Facebook posts and tweets deleted and profile images replaced with a pitch-black screen. Because millions of people follow the brand on those social platforms, the move quickly got attention and lots of free-media coverage. The Twitter page included only the hashtag “#OnlyintheApp,” which immediately clued everyone in on what the announcement such a widespread social-media tease could be promoting. In fact, the only social page that wasn’t left completely blank was Taco Bell’s YouTube profile, which had this 15-second teaser video. Now that news stories have come out with details of Taco Bell’s app, we can see that it has the features the intended audience would seek: a customizable menu for ordering ahead, mobile payment, and the ability to skip ahead of the line and pick up an order. Reportedly, the next big functionalities to be added would be catering and a loyalty program. It’s a rollout Taco Bell could not really afford to delay much longer: Wendy’s, Burger King, Subway and other fast-food brands have mobile-payment apps out in the marketplace already. But what’s most instructive to me about Taco Bell’s mobile-solution rollout is how it contrasts with the lack of a comprehensive mobile app at McDonald’s. Before today, Taco Bell and McDonald’s were probably the two most conspicuous absences on the list of quick-service brands offering some kind of mobile-payment app. Both brands had been testing different solutions and hinted that some kind of introduction would take place this year or early next year. But Taco Bell beating McDonald’s to the punch on this will only add to the Mexican-food brand’s commanding lead with Millennial consumers, making the Golden Arches’ uphill climb with younger consumers just a little bit steeper in the near term. For all of McDonald’s highly publicized problems with Millennials, one would think that a comprehensive mobile solution for ordering, payment and loyalty would be priority No. 1 at the chain. Perhaps it was and still is, but speaking as a Millennial consumer, McDonald’s most recent young-adult-facing initiative, the “Our food, your questions” video series, leaves me pretty flat. Taco Bell president Brian Niccol told Nation’s Restaurant News that the mobile app “is just the beginning of how we’re using technology to break down the walls of our restaurants and become more transparent with our customers about our food.” So even if it shares McDonald’s goal of openly discussing its ingredient quality and where it sources its food, Taco Bell at least understood that the mobile solution should come first for younger consumers. What makes the story even more impactful for me is that Taco Bell kept those same Millennial fans in the dark on social media — completely on purpose and to the maximum news-driving effect.