But for Taco Bell, it was crunch time.Īs the legend goes, Taco Bell founder Glen Bell entered the food business in San Bernardino, Calif., in 1948. Customers weren't wearing the T-shirts, and they certainly weren't shaving the brand's logo into their heads.Ī lesser company might have accepted its fate as a low-energy value brand. During that time, it battled negative perceptions over meat quality, bad press over lawsuits, and a seven-year stretch of same-store sales declines. After a respectable #6 finish on our 2003 list, Taco Bell slipped off our top 10 for 15 years. Related: The 'Nicest Taco Bell in the World' Is Exploding on TikTok, as People Marvel at the Beachfront Views and Boozy Drinks I think that kind of sums up what the brand is going for."īut even while projecting a youthful facade, the brand had to do a lot of growing up before reaching this moment - its first-ever appearance at the top of Entrepreneur's Franchise 500 list. Because when you're 16, you want to be 25, and when you're 45, you want to be 25.
"They say it's a brand that's always centered on being 25. "They're not afraid to wear a Taco Bell hat or shirt - you may not see that with all the other QSR brands out there," says Dennis Geiger, franchise equity research analyst and executive director at the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS). They come to the brand not just for tasty, cheap chalupas but for a good time. On the strength of all this, the franchise cultivated a committed fan base that skews younger, hipper, and more creative - the exact type you'd expect to show up for a resort takeover. And of course, it also produces a steady stream of news-making new dishes - like French Toast Chalupas and Kit Kat Chocoladillas - that might as well be marketing stunts all their own. (It didn't, but we believed!) And when Taco Bell heard the locals in Bethel, Alaska, had been duped by a rumor that Taco Bell was finally opening in their town, the franchise helicoptered in a taco truck carrying 10,000 Doritos Locos Tacos. if the Mir space station could hit a 40-by-40-foot floating target in the South Pacific upon reentry.
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There was the time it promised free tacos to every person in the U.S. For decades, the fast-food franchise has deployed masterful marketing campaigns to win customers. " From then on, I've loved this brand," he says.Ĭhalk it up to the everlasting appeal of Taco Bell stunts. But the buzzed-in logo went over great with colleagues. It wasn't the look he imagined for his first-ever presentation the following week to the board of directors of parent company Yum! Brands. "I definitely got taken by the moment of Taco Bell," King says, laughing. Related: Taco Bell Is Having a 'Go Big or Go Home' Moment By the time his head hit the Fire Sauce packet pillow, he had a Taco Bell logo shaved into the side of his trim gray haircut. But King didn't fully appreciate what she meant - not until he arrived at The Bell, anyway. Its culture was legendary and its connection with customers unrivaled. His 25-year-old daughter, a marketing professional, told him Taco Bell was one of the truly fun brands.
But he'd never worked in fast food or franchising, and he didn't yet have a handle on what made Taco Bell tick. He understood the power of corporate excitement - he'd turned TaylorMade into the world's most profitable golf company and tripled sales as president of Adidas North America. All 70 rooms had sold out within minutes, booked by superfans dreaming of floating on pool rafts shaped like hot-sauce packets while sipping spiked Mountain Dew Baja Blast slushies in plush Taco Bell robes.Īs King cruised down Highway 10, he still wasn't sure what to expect from the 57-year-old brand he'd just signed up to run. He was headed not for the border but for "The Bell" - the brand's four-day takeover of the V Palm Springs, a chic hotel about an hour away. On a hot August Saturday in 2019, less than a week into his new job as CEO of Taco Bell Corporation, Mark King started driving east from his office in Irvine, Calif.
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