![]() It must have been a pretty good day because Creed says the entire group was having a jolly, good ol' time. The 2003 trip took Creed and his team to Cabo San Lucas, and it was during this workcation the drink finally got a name.ĭespite the pressures of a mammoth undertaking weighing on their shoulders, those spearheading the marketing and development of the Taco Bell drink went out to play a round of golf. The stars were slowly aligning for Taco Bell, but the question remained - could they execute? (Photo: Taco Bell)Īt the time, executives from PepsiCo and Taco Bell took part in an annual event they called a "top-to-top meeting," an excursion that allowed top brass to take a workcation in some exotic locale around the globe. Coincidentally enough, DEW had recently begun to experiment with new flavors outside the typical Diet or Zero Sugar fare by the time Taco Bell's beverage got the official greenlight, MTN DEW Code Red had been on the market for a full year and the cherry-flavored DEW had quickly become a fan-favorite. The beloved drink was a top seller at the restaurant. Even better yet, Creed and his company instantly knew the Pepsi brand they were going after.Įvery step of the way, Taco Bell had its eyes set on a proprietary MTN DEW. Despite some initial pushback, Taco Bell was now set to make history as the first fast-food chain to have an exclusive soft drink. Nonetheless, the companies were off to the races. For a limited time, the drink would be available outside of Taco Bell partially so Pepsi could treat it as a regular drink and see how it performs, and partially to help drive traffic back into Taco Bell restaurants. The drink would only be available in Taco Bell stores, with the exception of one caveat - in an attempt to reach the widest audience possible, Taco Bell agreed to let Pepsi release some 20 million cans and bottles through the bottler's regular distribution channels. "And we thought, 'You know what? We can justify this because Taco Bell and Mountain Dew go so well together and willing to do so much behind this, that I don't think any other customer's going to be willing to do what they're going to do."Īn agreement was made, and Taco Bell would soon have its very own beverage. "I can't remember the moment when we decided we would do it, but they were very persistent, I remember that," Burwick recalls. As one Pepsi insider tells us, the collaboration was too advantageous for all involved, that's why the beverage-maker ended up taking the leap into the unknown.ĭave Burwick - PepsiCo's chief marketer from 2002 to 2005 - says that, ultimately, losing the partnership wasn't worth the risk. ![]() Though Taco Bell had graciously poured Pepsi for quite some time, there would be one day that beverage evaluation would return.Ĭreed persisted and, before long, the right people were convinced to get on board with what was then an unidentified Taco Bell soda. As it turns out, it's a common business practice in the world of fast food to reassess beverage contracts once every 10 years or so. Since Taco Bell was now a separate company, they could theoretically drop Pepsi for Coca-Cola. Surely, Taco Bell thought, Pepsi would take the plunge hand-in-hand with the chain.Ĭreed's response was nice and succinct, "Yeah, that's not a good answer." Some remnants of corporate synergy still floated about, and Taco Bell hoped to take that and combine it with the fact that the chain remained one of the few national fast-food restaurants to pour Pepsi products. ![]() At one point, Pepsi and Taco Bell were both under the Yum! umbrella, before the drink-maker took Frito-Lay and its massive portfolio of drink brands to become its own company. In 2002, a conversation was started with Pepsi, the beverage-maker with exclusive drink rights to the entire Taco Bell chain. The group needed something to draw people into the store, so Creed and his team pulled something we'll call the "Ultimate Costner." Though no fast-food restaurant had taken the leap into exclusive soft drinks, Taco Bell quickly shifted its culture to "build it and they will come." If the Taco Bell team was able to craft a drink available nowhere else, surely people would arrive in droves. To reverse the trend, the Taco Bell marketing team came up with an idea that was practically unheard of at the time - a proprietary soft drink. "We tried to get to the bottom of why that was, and the answer was because a lot of young people, teenagers, young adults, their response was, 'Well, I've got a free drink at home because mom and dad have been out to Walmart or Costco or Kroger,'" Creed recalls. ![]()
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