Taco Bell decided to complement a traditional campaign for the "Why Pay More!" Value menu with a sampling effort, but wanted to do so in a way that would get people talking. So, we loaded everything onto a truck with a kitchen and headed across the country last summer, tweeting our progress as we went. At first, the stops were planned out through Taco Bell sponsorships (MLB All Star Game, MTV VMAs) but eventually we decided to let our followers tell us where to stop next. We were looking at number of requests and creativity of suggestions.

Through fan suggestions, we made more than 20 stops, including catering weddings at a chapel in Las Vegas and throwing a comics party in Manhattan for the Marvel.com editor. We even catered the all-day telethon to help cancer patient @thatdrew raise money for LIVESTRONG.The Truck gathered 70MM PR impressions and 23MM Twitter impressions, hundreds of stop requests, four marriage proposals, features on Extra, Access Hollywood, and the LA Times and New York Times. We made No.5 on Maxim’s list of 100 Twitter accounts every guy should know about. Most importantly, we connected with our biggest fans around something that truly matters: tacos.

Initially we stuck to prearranged stops secured through Taco Bell sponsorships, including the MLB All-Star game in St. Louis. But after garnering a loyal following, we asked our fans to help determine future stops and received hundreds of suggestions. One suggested we cater weddings at a Vegas chapel, so we did. We fed a telethon in Philly to help cancer patient @thatdrew raise money for LIVESTRONG. We ultimately made 28 stops in 14 cities, and gave away nearly 30,000 tacos.In between stops, we continued the conversation on Twitter by regularly interacting with our fans including celebrities such as Spencer Pratt, The Fat Boys and Lance Armstrong. We also held ongoing challenges and contests with our followers that were focused on the brand and the food.

The program received 70MM gross impressions, over $800k in publicity value. It more then paid for itself, 4 times over.It was featured on Sportscenter, Extra and Access Hollywood, as well as blogs, TV (we scored air time on Fox during the MLB All-Star game), radio and newspapers (NY Times, LA Times).

We received 23MM Twitter impressions, based on word-of-mouth from our followers and well-known personalities. We made No.5 on Maxim’s list of 100 Twitter accounts every guy should follow, and earned the second largest Twitter following amongst fast food companies.

Ultimately, we connected with our biggest fans around something that truly matters: tacos. The overwhelming sentiment being expressed toward Taco Bell was love. We received four marriage proposals and fan photos in Taco Bells with captions like “thinking of you”.We now have a loyal following we can employ as the @TacoBellTruck sets out for new adventures in 2010.