Taco Bell Finds a Jared to Flack Low-Fat Items

A new online/ offline campaign from Taco Bell is tapping into New Year’s diet resolutions and real-life weight loss stories by highlighting healthier menu items and spotlighting a user who claims to have lost weight largely by eating those items.

The Taco Bell “Drive Thru Diet” campaign makes use of the quick-serviced chain’s Taco Bell Fresco menu first rolled out in 2007 and kept in the product mix since then, although without much recent fanfare. The seven items each contain less than 9 grams of fat, mostly by substituting salsa for the cheese in many Taco Bell offerings.

But a new TV ad campaign highlights the “Drive Thru Diet” from Taco Bell and directs viewers to a microsite that gives details about the menu items. It also lets visitors view some infomercial-style videos that introduce Christine Daugherty, a young woman who claims that she lost 54 pounds over two years by making the Fresco items part of her regular diet.

Daugherty does not give full details about her dietary changes or other lifestyle adjustments such as exercise but merely explains that in 2007 she replaced her previous fast-food choices with Taco Bell Fresco items. In the videos, some of which are being used as broadcast spots, Daugherty explains that she also reduced her daily calorie intake. A screen crawl explains that her diet was based on an average of 1250 calories per day, which amounted over the two years to an average reduction of 500 calories per day.

In December, new regulations from the Federal Trade Commission regarding endorsement claims and testimonials kicked in. Known as the “Jared rules” for their relevance to the kind of weight-loss claims made by Subway spokesman Jared Fogle, these new restrictions force marketers to provide more detail in their testimonial-based campaigns than simply adding a “results not typical” tag to a tale of amazing weight loss or other personal development.

The Web site’s text content goes further than usual in stressing that Daugherty’s weight loss was an “exceptional experience.” Screen crawls during her testimony assert that the “Taco Bell Drive-Thru Diet is not a weight loss program” and that participants should “pay attention to total calorie and fat intake and regular exercise.” The fine print under the video player also states that Fresco’s low-fat claims relate to the other menu items offered by Taco Bell but that they are not low-calorie foods.

Within the videos, however, about the only spoken concession made to Daugherty’s specific results appears to be her statement in one of the short clips that “these results aren’t typical…but for me, they’re fantastic.”

Visitors to the DriveThruDiet.com Web site can also download a printable coupon for a free Taco Bell Fresco taco, an offer the company says it will maintain until it has given away 1 million of the items, with a limit of one coupon to a customer.

They can also make a “Frescolution” to live a healthier life by becoming more active, making “sensible food choices” and pledging that “when I choose to eat fast food, I will choose to eat better” by selecting the Fresco items on the Taco Bell Drive-Thru Diet. Those opting to complete the pledge can then send motivational e-cards to their friends who have also opted into the program, lending them support with messages such as “You’re turning yourself from a siesta into a fiesta.”

And if they register, Fresco pledge takes can also line themselves up for a year’s worth of free Fresco items by taking part in a Twitter instant-win game. Each week for 15 weeks through July 2010, Taco Bell and game administrators ePrize will choose one random winner from among all those registrants who have tweeted about living a low-fat “Fresco lifestyle” incorporating both the #drivethrudiet hashtag into their tweet and a link to the game rules.

Judging by the $550 estimated value of the Fresco-for-a-year prize, those winners are still expected to be eating a lot of Taco Bell annually.