First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their great work and commitment to excellence during 2017. System sales continued to grow and I would like to think that a large portion of that success was driven by our restaurants’ effective and efficient implementation of our marketing programs. I believe that these successes can continue and that the 2018 Marketing Calendar provides the platform for just that.
Nacho Fries provided a strong start to the year and I am excited to share with you several new promotions coming soon to our restaurants to hopefully continue our great start to 2018. Experience 4 sees the introduction of the Triple Melt Burrito and Triple Melt Nachos with melty cheddar, mozzarella and pepper jack cheeses. We will also be introducing the new Chalupa Cravings Box, which will offer a Chalupa, Beefy 5-Layer Burrito, Crunchy Taco, Cinnamon Twists, and medium drink. During this experience, we will continue to feature the Naked Egg Taco and the Strawberry Skittles Freeze. Experience 5 will see the return of everyone’s favorite Chalupa with a shell made of chicken, the Naked Chicken Chalupa. This time though, it comes back in two varieties, Mild (the “classic” Naked Chicken Chalupa) and Wild (the new spicier version). In Experience 6, Taco Bell will be bringing back the Steakhouse Nachos, the only nachos that feed a steakhouse-sized appetite. As for the rest of the year, Taco Bell has plans to re-release our hugely successful Nacho Fries, as well as the release of the Double Cheesy Gordita Crunch. As we get closer, the Marketing Department will send out more information on these and other soon-to-be-announced promotions coming to your restaurants.
One administrative item that I would like to take a moment to highlight is Point-of-Purchase (“POP”) materials. Before every experience, each restaurant should be receiving the appropriate POP materials that are to be posted per the roadmap. On occasion, the Marketing Department may also send out custom POP that should also be posted per the instructions given. Although not a common problem there have been a few circumstances when a restaurant will call the office either the day the promotion is scheduled to begin or even a few days after that to let us know that they did not receive some or all of the necessary POP for the promotion. At that point, it can be a scramble to try and correct this issue as supply of promotional materials and timing (length of the promotion and time needed to send out new materials) may sometimes work against us. As a matter of habit, once your POP materials come in, whether national or custom, please review the contents of the packages received to make sure all the materials are accounted for and in the store. This will ensure that if there is an issue, it can be handled in a timely manner, with minimal disruption to the promotion, if any.
Overall, I am excited with what the year has coming for us. If everyone continues to work with the energy and enthusiasm exhibited over the last year, then we will continue to produce great results. Based on that, I believe that this can be another banner year for the brand and our company.
By: Yianni Achilleos
Marketing Director
