Taco Bell Retells Stories From The Internet In Part One Of Branded Video Push

Thanks to its work on sites like Twitter and Reddit, Taco Bell has a reputation as a social-savvy brand. Now, it’s looking to bring some of that savvy to YouTube. According to Co.Create, the fast food brand wants to launch at least 40 pieces of video content in 2017. To kick off that initiative, it has launched Taco Tales, which reenacts a series of stories about the restaurant chain that the show’s writers found on the Internet.

Taco Bell launched Taco Tales in partnership with the studio Madison + Vine. Each of the series’ six episodes features its own tale, and each tale is set, at least in part, at Taco Bell. There are some familiar faces among the cast — Sam Brown from Whitest Kids U Know shows up in the pilot — and the stories are funny enough to serve as fine distractions.

Taco Tales is the first part of a much larger initiative. Taco Bell recognizes that people on YouTube love experimenting with its menu, and the chain wants to bring those creators into its content push. According to Co.Create, some of the company’s upcoming programming will incorporate existing user-generated clips into the mix.

“We’ll do some different things, drawing on this kind of episodic and serialized programming schedule that we see out there on the Netflixes of the world,” Taco Bell senior manager of social strategy Ryan Rimsnider told Co.Create. “It’s really about how we harness the power of the YouTube community and the fans of Taco Bell, to really serve as a connective tissue and help them tell awesome stories.”

To check out new episodes of Taco Tales as they arrive, subscribe to the Taco Bell YouTube channel.