Make a Run for the (Gen Z) Border

 

Fast food legend Taco Bell has recently launched two new marketing initiatives that aim to further their grip on the Gen Z demographic. Notoriously successful with this much sought after demographic group, the taco gurus have once again thought outside the bun to spread their message of taco and burritos for everyone, but especially the younger folk. 

Using an innovative "Taco IRL" campaign, Taco Bell has set their eyes on spreading brand awareness globally by partnering with influencers and leveraging paid and organic social messaging. With this strategy, customers can scan a QR code that will then populate a taco emoji in a users messaging app. In turn, a free taco is their reward after they hit 'send'. It all rolls up to a very ambitious effort to 'own' the taco emoji on people's phones. So when you tell your bff it's Taco Tuesday and do so using one of these: 🌮, you'll immediately think of Taco Bell. Mind = Blown. 

The second major initiative leverages their Discord and spreading awareness of National Taco Day, which they claim to be the biggest holiday for the company. The biggest point with this strategy is that Taco Bell is truly trying to create a community of taco lovers in hopes that connecting over 'a shared love of Taco Bell' will help facilitate organic growth for the company. The Discord server held contests to award members and aims to become a long lasting stop to share thoughts why T Bell is the go-to spot for gorditas. 

Source: https://www.thedrum.com/news/2021/10/04/taco-bell-takes-ownership-taco-emoji-global-taco-day-stunt

Facebook launched WhatsApp Business API

People around the world use WhatsApp, one of the popular messaging applications, to connect with each other. To expand the user base not limit just the personal conversation, Facebook launched a new service called WhatsApp Business API to help businesses having a message communication with their customers. It allows the companies to send the end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) messages to the customers who initiate the chat or request the information. The business can customize the response such as shipping confirmation or appointment reminder to notify the customer as well.

WhatsApp Business API is free of charge if the businesses reply to their customers’ message within 24 hours. If more than 24 hours, the business sides will get charged with the fixed rate which is significantly different in each country. (The range is about $0.01 to $0.09 per message). The time count will restart a 24-hour cycle in each replied message from the customers.

With this service, WhatsApp has become one of the most significant sources for the inbound marketing, and it is also the powerful impact for both businesses and customers.

Reference:

https://marketingland.com/facebook-looks-to-monetize-whatsapp-with-new-business-api-ads-that-open-chats-in-the-messaging-app-245311

Internet Portal & Messaging App in the Case of South Korea

Last summer in 2014, one of the biggest South Korean search portals Daum acquired KakaoTalk, a small start-up messaging application at the time. In my opinion, this was Daum's best decision ever because KakaoTalk allows personalized advertisements on its 145mil registered devices. As an avid KakaoTalk user, I am also increasingly more favoring Daum as my go-to portal instead of Naver (the leading portal in S. Korea), not only because of the convenience but also because I love seeing Daum's witty advertisements on Kakao (cute emojis and stickers, available as stationery items and toys in retail stores, too! Koreans love this stuff, you know). KakaoTalk and Daum now share a great subculture that is prominent throughout the application; Kakao has become more than a messaging app now, almost a social media platform where people converse minutely.

Naver is still the leading internet portal in South Korea today, but Daum might soon catch up. In order to combat this, Naver recently launched TV ads for the first time with the slogan "Ask Naver (네이버에 물어봐)." But will TV ads be enough? It will be interesting to observe how this Naver vs. Daum or internet portal's TV commercial vs. Digital Marketing action will unravel. We will see the results this year.

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21603035-latest-tie-up-between-messaging-apps-and-broader-online-firms-getting-message