In 2020, Taco Bell removed a few menu items, including a beloved icon: the Mexican Pizza. Fans created viral petitions, made protest songs, and even held funerals, in addition to the flood of social mentions demanding the product's return. Doja Cat took on the anti-hero role with Taco Bell, giving a larger voice to Mexican Pizza's fans.

In 2021, Taco Bell decided to bring back the Mexican Pizza, but needed a way for it to come back bigger and better than ever. Because even though there was a large volume of mentions, their passion had not been reflected in previous sales.

We were bringing back the Mexican Pizza for the fans, and we knew their journeys and efforts had to be immortalized and celebrated.

We wanted to create a musical that immortalized the efforts of the Mexican Pizza fans for its return. Following the success of TikTok musicals like Ratatouille and For You, Page, we decided to take the musical to TikTok. When we saw Barlow & Bear shock the Grammys by winning Best Musical Theater Album for their TikTok album, The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical, we knew they were the perfect fit.

Taco Bell’s Mexican Pizza: The Musical celebrated the connection between the menu item and all the consumers lobbying for its return. Taco Bell had been inundated with petitions, protest songs—some fans even held funerals for the Mexican Pizza. To celebrate their journey, we featured real fans within the musical performance itself, including everyday people alongside influencers and superstars like Dolly Parton (a real Mexican Pizza fan)—playing out moments from Doja Cat’s epic crusade to get it back.

When Doja Cat released her “contractual” jingle about Mexican Pizza, it garnered a massive response from her fans. One such fan, TikTok influencer Victor Kunda, went so far as to use Doja Cat’s jingle to create his own video from the perspective of someone “walking into the dance rehearsals for Taco Bell’s Mexican Pizza: The Musical.” After Doja Cat organically reposted Victor’s content, we saw an opportunity to connect some dots and create the official Taco Bell’s Mexican Pizza: The Musical.

The last time the Mexican Pizza was available, it sold 20 per store per day. With this relaunch campaign, that number shot to 264—a 1220% increase. The musical drove fans to eat 7x more Mexican Pizzas than expected, and within two weeks, Mexican Pizzas were sold out. Taco Bell sales increased by 8% and loyalty program sign-ups by 10%. When Mexican Pizza: The Musical premiered, it received 9x our target KPI of live views, over 80 million total views, and 1.9k days of total time watched (45,587 hours, 24 minutes, 38 seconds). Across social, it generated more than 256k lives, 4.1k comments, and 8.3k shares. The album featuring Barlow & Bear and Dolly Parton has over 47.2k streams on Spotify.