Two Logos Are Not a Strategy

*On Taco Bell × Tajín, and looking for food trends where people are already having lunch.*

Somewhere right now, two marketing teams have put their logos next to each other and called it a strategy. The deck already has “synergy”, “shared values” and a reach forecast. Why anyone should care is still being drafted.

That last part is what interests us. What actually exists because these two brands got together? A new flavour? A more useful product? Something so obvious in hindsight that you wonder why nobody did it sooner?

With Taco Bell × Tajín, at least you can eat the answer. The familiar chilli-lime flavour made its way into Taco Bell products, with Peso Pluma joining the campaign. Already more persuasive than forty slides on mutually enriching each other’s audiences. Campaign details — Taco Bell.

We like the thinking behind it: notice something people already enjoy and give them another convenient way to enjoy it. They can imagine the taste before they buy. They have a reason of their own to try it, and that reason has nothing to do with two marketing directors finally agreeing on a budget.

Brands sometimes have a peculiar need to behave as though life began at their strategy workshop. Before that, nobody combined ingredients, cooked anything or recommended things to friends. Then the research team arrived, and humanity discovered the snack.

We would start by paying closer attention. What are people already doing with the product? What do they add it to? When does it come up in conversation? Which partner could actually build on that habit? There’s the beginning of a collaboration you can explain without using the word “ecosystem”.

A familiar flavour is no free pass, of course. The product still has to be good, the price has to make sense, and people need to be able to buy it. A celebrity campaign won’t fix a disappointing dinner. It may just make it more expensive to produce.

So before the next brief to “create a new food trend”, we suggest having lunch. And noticing what the people at the next table have already worked out without us.