shortlisted for four cannes lions

bronze cannes lion — PR Single market

Bronze Cannes Lion — Social behavior & cultural insight

Andy award — Bravery, idea

Fast Company — #1 Ad of 2023

“Taco Tuesday” was trademarked, so we teamed up with LeBron James to free it.

A large Midwestern taco chain owned the “Taco Tuesday” trademark. Worse, they harassed small taco stores by sending them '“cease and desist” letters whenever they used the phrase. We thought that was messed up, so we filed a legal petition against the trademark.

With the oversight of Taco Bell’s lawyers, I wrote the legal petition document that we submitted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel the trademark. (I think that technically makes me a lawyer, if you happen to need those services.)

LeBron James and his family LOVE Taco Tuesday. And luckily, he said yes to teaming up with us to free “Taco T***day.” Here’s our TV spot, directed by the very talented Rodrigo Valdes, who was a dream to work with.

Next, we created a petition on change.org so fans could get behind the cause. Then the tables turned on Instagram when it was LeBron asking fans for their autograph.

We didn’t know if we’d be able to free the trademark. And if we did, Taco Bell lawyers said it could take a year or two. But if impossible takes Jay-Z a week, it took us just 3 months. We won and the “Taco Tuesday” trademark was free!

It was great for Taco Bell, obviously, with all the earned media and news coverage that the campaign produced: 21 billion earned media impressions, 11,000 pieces of media coverage and our audience engagement in one week surpassed the entirety of the hugely popular Mexican Pizza relaunch from the year before.

Even cooler were seeing posts like this one from small taco business owners.

Say it with us, “Taco Tuuuesdayyy!”