“Make Taco Tuesdays more famous than Thirsty Thursday in the UK today” was how Monica Pool, Marketing Director of Taco Bell UK & Europe introduced their brand challenge at this summer’s MAD//Fest. 

In setting the challenge Pool outlined a few of the issues that face Taco Bell in the UK: “Our brand awareness is just so low, we have 130 restaurants, but people just don't really know that we're here. They know Taco Bell from film, culture, culture and music and from their trips to the US. But our job is really to land the brand here in the UK. And we really want to be the number one QSR brand for Gen Z” 

So the gauntlet to the pitching startups was set:  How would you make Taco Tuesday a buzzworthy favourite for youth in the UK today?

Winning the pitch was Doorway, an enterprise-focused digital business card built for Apple Wallet and Google Pay. 

Doorway’s solution lay in how they could help Taco Bell put their brand into a customer’s life, every single day. Co-founder Chase Tecimer said that: “So what doorways here to do is to make me see Taco Bell every day, to make me see Taco Tuesday, every week… So how does it work? You're a customer, you show up to Taco Bell, you scan a QR code at the till, and this pops up, add it to your wallet. And now you have your Taco Bell doorway.”

He elaborated further: “You can also engage customers in a way that has never been done before. Everyone has apps, I have a Taco Bell app. I have a MacDonald’s app. However, I silence all notifications. But through doorway, you cannot actually silence these notifications because they are from the wallet. So it's a very unique offering”. 

So whether it's for Taco Tuesday or for a wider loyalty programme, you are able update the card design. “And now when I open my wallet, I see Gosh, new colour. What's that? But more importantly, I get a pop up, which tells me to look at this card”

To find out more about Doorway’s solution - how they can implement the idea at scale, how Doorway works with Taco Bell’s app rather than replacing it, (and the data they get from it), and why Monica Pool felt Doorway’s solution was the most disruptive - watch the full pitch here. 

You can watch all the MAD//Fest London action including the PITCH//IT sessions from on our YouTube channel. Just select the ‘House of Innovation’ playlist for each day to catch all of the pitches.