Taco Bell is continuing to rely on mobile and social as the marketing muscle behind its line of Doritos Locos Tacos with an Instagram campaign that lets users win prizes by snapping pictures of their favorite meals.

The Taco Bell campaign is running through October 15. Taco Bell has been actively promoting the line of Doritos Locos Tacos through digital marketing since its launch earlier this year.

?Mobile becomes an extension of a person, so we are trying to take advantage of it through social media,? said Nick Tran, social media lead for Taco Bell Corp., Irvine, CA.

?Essentially we will see a merge of mobile and social so that people won?t be differentiating the two and will only be asking what you?re doing in mobile,? he said.

Mobile foodies
The idea for the Taco Bell ?Live Mas to Win Mas? campaign came after the brand saw an increase in users snapping pictures of the company?s food on Instagram.

From there, a TV spot was created that chronicles a consumer?s first taste of a taco through a series of Instagram photos.

The campaign was then extended to the current contest on the photo app that encourages consumers to tag their Taco Bell meals with the hashtag #livemascontest.

In order to participate in the campaign, users must register to enter on Taco Bell?s Web or mobile site by filling out contact information and their Instagram username. Users can also enter on the brand?s Facebook app for the campaign.

Once registering and submitting a tagged photo, consumers are entered to win grand prizes including a trip to the Taco Bell test kitchen, a $5,000 scholarship towards college or trips to either Pacifica, CA for surfing lessons or Seoul to visit Taco Bell's South Korea location. Daily prizes include a year?s worth of Doritos Locos Tacos, gift cards and t-shirts.

Taco Bell is using a mixture of paid media and the TV spot to promote the campaign.

Using Instagram for contests to connect with users is a trend that more marketers are getting behind. Instagram helps brands reach consumers on the only device that they consistently have on-hand ? their mobile device ? while also using the social media component to the platform to spread messages quickly.

In particular, Mr. Tran said that he believes Facebook?s acquisition of Instagram will pave the way to connect social media and mobile.

The mobile registration form

Past initiatives
Mobile has played a large role in how Taco Bell has marketed the Doritos Locos Tacos.

When the product launched earlier this year, Taco Bell placed mobile bar codes on packages, used mobile advertising to spread the word and launched an augmented reality component to the brand?s app to interact with users (see story).

Using a combination of mobile and social marketing helps Taco Bell reach the widest net of users, especially for its core group of Millennials.

?Our customers love this product and they express it via social platforms, so it is an area for us to explore further,? Mr. Tran said.

?We have a strong focus on engaging where our customers are ? whether that is mobile or social campaigns, it is definitely an area to be on the pulse of as a whole,? he said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter at Mobile Marketer, New York