Dive Brief:
- Taco Bell set a Snapchat Lens campaign record with its recent Cinco de Mayo campaign by receiving 224 million views in one day, besting Gatorade’s Super Bowl effort which hit 165 million views, according to reporting by Adweek.
- The Taco Bell lens turned Snapchat users’ heads into giant taco shells and featured audio with the fast food restaurant’s bong sound that was previously used in branding.
- According to Adweek, Snapchat Lens campaigns cost as much as $750,000 for holidays and events such as the Super Bowl, although there was no reporting on what Taco Bell paid for the Cinco de Mayo campaign.
Dive Insight:
Taco Bell’s results for the campaign were impressive. According to Snapchat, in terms of unique plays by its users the effort generated 12.5 years' worth of plays in a day. At the same time, if Taco Bell spent anywhere close to the figure Adweek previously reported for the Snapchat Lens ad unit, the campaign was a high risk, high reward move -- that in this case ended up paying off.
Marketers are increasingly intrigued by Snapchat, with its heavily Gen Z and Millennial user base, but it’s still an emerging advertising platform with ad offering issues to sort out and steep price tags. What's more, Taco Bell brand-wise is a good match for Snapchat audiences who are already playing around with Snapchat lenses, branded or not.
Taco Bell is proving to be a brand willing to try out new marketing channels, as evidenced by its recent announcement it’s releasing a Slack-based chatbot for order taking. Not all brands can benefit when taking these types of risks.
"The content is expected to be lightweight and humorous, and the platform empowers you to be nimble and efficient in creation," Ryan Rimsnider, senior manager of social strategy for Taco Bell, told Adweek. "That doesn't mean it's not an artful craft however—my team puts a ton of thought into story development from conception to storyboarding and being constantly curious on how to be even better on the next one."
