Available at a Taco Bell near you is the new Fiery Doritos Locos Tacos (DLT). The third offering within the brand’s most successful product platform ever – with 600 million sold since March 2012 – it combines spicy chili with a hint of lime flavor in a crunchy red shell.
Matthew Yglesias over at Slate explained that it takes some inspiration from Flamas-flavored Doritos, but it’s branded separately.
A Doritos Locos Taco, if you don’t know, is a hard taco where the shell is made up of Doritos chips. The DLT series debuted with the most famous Doritos flavor—nacho cheese. Then it expanded to Cool Ranch, which I don’t really care for as a chip but is at least OK as a taco shell. For the third entry, though, they did something interesting. There is no “fiery” flavor of Doritos. The Fiery DLT clearly takes some inspiration from Flamas-flavored Doritos, but it’s branded separately.
Fast Facts:
- The Doritos Locos Taco, first introduced in March 2012, was the biggest and most successful product launch in Taco Bell’s history.
- A year later, it unveiled its Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Taco, and by May, the chain said it has sold more than 500 million of the tacos total.
Taco Bell has been leveraging social media to tease the arrival of the new DLT.
A MediaPost story this week mentions the work by Digitas.
The agency gave YouTube content creators Freddie Wong and Brandon Laatsch — the two behind the YouTube FreddieW videos — a brief about the product and left it up to them to interpret it in their own way.
You can see the results below. This YouTube video has garnered a lot of attention (and over 760K hits).
For sure, the intent was to get a bunch of buzz going in anticipation of the upcoming availability of the Fiery DLT. In their press announcement on August 13, Taco Bell said they were encouraging fans to keep their eyes and ears on the brand’s social media channels (like Facebook) through Aug. 22 for surprise opportunities to try the new taco before it launches nationally.
Up to this point, the run of TV ads for Taco Bell have been for their “smothered” burrito that just looks too messy to be a fast food winner. Seems like it was a placeholder while Taco Bell built buzz for the new DLT.
The Freddie & Brandon video was an effective way to get people curious to try the Fiery DLT. Now, if Taco Bell can deliver again on flavor, texture and value, they should be able to break away from the pack of fast food providers (fast casual too — your move Chipotle!).
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Note: Starting on Aug. 22, the new Fiery DLT became available nationally – $1.39 regular (170 calories; 10g total fat) and $1.69 for a supreme (200 calories; 12g total fat).
If for nothing else, the name alone (that’s a mouthful!) makes the DLT worth a try! I only hope size-wise lives up to picture.