T-MOBILE x TACO BELL · T-MOBELL

How do you make people love an industry they hate?

T-Mobile Tuesdays needed to feel like more than a list of rewards. The team built around the offer customers kept choosing and turned taco night into a piece of Un-carrier behavior.

THE PROBLEM

Wireless is an industry nobody loves; the rewards program had to make Un-carrier feel real.

THE MOVE

Build around what customers kept choosing — tacos — and turn taco night into a place you could walk into.

THE RECEIPT

A three-day pop-up: 12K visitors, 333 earned placements, 168M social impressions.

ROLE

Head of Brand Social Communications · In-house · T-Mobile

REMIT

T-Mobile brand social lead, overseeing: · Brand social strategy · Brand social community strategy · Brand social comms · Brand social partnership integration

DIRECT CONTRIBUTION

T-Mobile-side brand social strategy and activation within a wider cross-functional, two-brand team

THE PROBLEM

An industry nobody loves.

Wireless had spent years teaching people to expect friction, fine print, and disappointment. T-Mobile’s Un-carrier position promised a different relationship. T-Mobile Tuesdays had to make that promise tangible enough to claim, share, and repeat.

THE SPARK

Customers kept choosing food. Tacos most of all.

The offer data pointed to a ritual hiding inside the rewards app. Food reliably brought people back, and the Taco Bell partnership had already produced more than 14 million taco claims. Repetition gave the team something more useful than a one-off deal: a Tuesday habit with social currency.

14M+

TACOS CLAIMED THROUGH T-MOBILE TUESDAYS BEFORE THE POP-UP

THE BRIEF

Something to taco ’bout.

Get T-Mobile customers and potential switchers who want more from their mobile carrier to engage, talk, and share their love for T-Mobile by giving them something to taco ’bout.

THE STRATEGY, AS WRITTEN.

THE MOVE

Make the reward behave like a brand.

T-MoBell mashed the two identities into a place people could enter. For three days in July 2019, branded pop-ups in NYC, LA, and Chicago served tacos, T-MoBell Freezes, merchandise, and live programming.

The physical experience gave social a setting, characters, and a reason to keep unfolding. A nationwide giveaway widened participation beyond the three cities, while live content and earned coverage carried the mashup well past the storefronts.