Taco Bell Corp. “wasn’t a turnaround job” when Chief Marketing Officer Marisa Thalberg took over the reins in June 2016. Systemwide sales that year at the Irvine-based Mexican-themed fast food chain were up 6% to about $9.6 billion.
Thalberg, backed by a team of 130 and a marketing budget of about $375 million, set out to lift the well-performing division of Louisville, Ky.-based Yum Brands Inc. even higher. Now, more than a year into her tenure, Taco Bell has kept up the growth pace, and then some. The brand posted an 8% increase in sales to $7.06 billion in the first nine months of 2017.
Thalberg’s role in the sales spike didn’t go unnoticed. Forbes Media named her to its 2017 list of the World’s 50 Most Influential CMOs last summer. And 2,300-member She Runs It, founded in 1912 as Advertising Women of New York “to pave the way for women to lead at every level of marketing and media,” selected her as its woman of the year. The trade group’s president and chief executive, Lynn Branigan, described her as “an agent of change who is driven by a fascination with culture, media and psychology.”
Taco Mode
Notable marketing moves under Thalberg’s watch include merchandise collaboration with Forever 21 and developing “Taco Mode” for Lyft, allowing passengers to request rides that include a pit stop at a Taco Bell drive-thru.
Then there’s the $600 combo that wedding parties can order right off the menu board at Taco Bell Cantina in Las Vegas—it includes a Taco 12 Pack, services of an ordained officiant, a reception area for 15 guests, a Cinnabon Delights cake and a sauce packet bouquet for the bride.
“We are making [Taco Bell] more of a total lifestyle brand,” Thalberg said. “We really are like the fast fashion of food, in that we are constantly translating trends and ideas and opportunities to a broad audience at a very rapid pace.”
New collaborations are in the works, but Thalberg is picky when it comes to choosing a partner.
“You have to anthropomorphize the brand,” she said. “[If Taco Bell and Forever 21 were people] would they be friends in real life, or if they were dating, would they be a really cool couple?”
Everything that her team develops “is born out of real insights,” she said. “Nothing is gratuitous.”
“We see a little seedling of an idea—often in social media—and we are like, ‘Ah, that’s the thing we can just magnify and turn into something. I think that’s the cultural resonance that’s separating us into really a category of one.”
Taco Bell’s most recent campaign—Belluminati—promotes its $1 value menu via a play on Illuminati, a secret society of celebrities and world leaders, according to conspiracy theories. The 30-second TV commercials explore the connection between Taco Bell and the dollar bill’s iconography: the TB at the start of a serial number, the 20-layered pyramid on the back of the bill that corresponds to the 20 items on its upcoming value menu, to name a few.
“If I had to go down in association with a piece of work, I’d be just as happy for it to be this campaign,” Thalberg said.
Super Bowl spots are creatively challenging, she allowed, but she said she wants to apply that same energy to everything the chain does.
“You could easily relegate that to, ‘Ah, they’re just dirt-cheap products,’ but that’s not philosophically how we feel about anything on our menu.”
DeutschLA, Taco Bell’s creative agency of record, developed the Belluminati campaign. Spark, part of Publicis Groupe, handles media planning for the chain, and Edelman takes care of PR.
Life Before Tacos
Thalberg served as vice president for global digital marketing at the Estée Lauder Cos. Inc. in New York prior to moving to Southern California to sell tacos.
“I was an intrapreneur. I was basically taking these 30-plus global prestige brands that have so much organizational complexity, incredible brands but very traditional, and helping drive them into the modern form of consumer engagement,” she said. “I was starting to feel less stimulated, and ready for a new challenge. My ears were open, but I never thought I would relocate until Taco Bell called. I thought that it was interesting that they were willing to take a chance on someone like me with a really different background.”
Leaving New York proved to be a bigger challenge for Thalberg, a “city girl,” who for the first time didn’t have a garbage chute or a doorman.
Thalberg, whose New York accent stands out in Southern California, worked on the agency side early in her career at Saatchi & Saatchi and J. Walter Thompson. Before taking leadership roles at Revlon, Unilever Cosmetics International and Sure Fit, she briefly worked as a producer at Dow Jones TV in New York.
“It was an incredible learning experience,” she said. “It taught me a lot about how to sell an idea.”
If marketing wasn’t an option, what would she be doing right now?
“I would have my own talk show.”
