Is it easier to take over a struggling brand or a super-hot brand?
A hot brand might sound easier. It already has momentum! The fundamentals are strong! But in January 2024, when Sean Tresvant became the new CEO of Taco Bell, he answered that question differently: “I don’t think it’s easier to walk into a hot brand,” he said back then. When the bar is high, every dip is noticeable. “My job, and our job as the Taco Bell team, is to keep this brand hot.”
By that measure, Tresvant is doing his job.
Taco Bell has been on a yearslong hot streak both on the Franchise 500 and in the market, and that continued in 2024: Same-store sales grew 4%, international systems grew 6%, and digital sales grew 30%. (That data was through Q3.) And it launched over 40 new menu items, including fun collaborations (like with Cheez-It crackers) and promotions (like a menu of discontinued but beloved items from decades past). All that growth helped Taco Bell notch its fifth consecutive No. 1 spot on the Franchise 500 — making it only the second brand to achieve that feat in our 46-year history. (The other was Subway.)
Related: Why Taco Bell’s New Boss Says He’s ‘Not the Dictionary Definition of a CEO’
So what’s the secret? Tresvant says it like this: Taco Bell doesn’t want to be just another successful quick-service restaurant brand; it wants to be a “capital-B Brand” — building deep, personal, decadeslong relationships with its consumers, and transcending the products it sells.
Here, Tresvant explains how Taco Bell thinks big and acts bigger.
You’re now one year into being CEO. With all you’ve learned so far, what’s your advice to someone stepping into a new leadership position?
Learn the role. Learn to make sure you’re being the CEO and not the job you were in previously. For me, it was going from the chief brand officer to the CEO. So much to my chagrin, I wasn’t in charge of marketing anymore, and I had to learn that. I had to appreciate that. And I had to let my functional experts be great. I had to be the person who created the culture and created the “big-swing” environment to let them do their job and do it well.
On the flip side of that is learning the other functions, making sure I’m adding value — whether it’s development, whether it’s finance, whether it’s working in the international or the U.S. business — and growing in those areas, asking the right questions.
That reminds me of a conversation I had with John Mackey, a cofounder and the former longtime CEO of Whole Foods. He said that he attributes his long success to his willingness to constantly ask, “What does the business need from me?” The answer to that is going to change, but usually that answer meant moving away from a thing that he knew how to do well.
It’s doing what the company needs of you and being able to listen. There’s a lot of constituents. There’s a lot of ideas. So it’s very important to listen to the different functions, the team as individuals, the team as a team, and understanding where people are coming from — and then being able to make a smart, aligned decision.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Taco Bell
When you were chief brand officer, you brought a lot of menu items back, like the Mexican Pizza. You even set up a system for customers to vote on which menu items to bring back. This year, you’ve gone further. For example, there’s the Decades Menu — a lineup of food that Taco Bell used to serve between the ’60s and ’00s. Why so much nostalgia?
For Taco Bell, nostalgia plays. A group of us — it was probably early first quarter — were sitting around saying, “You know, beyond being able to vote on menu items to bring one back, what would that be on steroids?” We had a little inspiration from a famous singer who was doing an “Eras” tour at the time. And I think it came up: What would be our “eras”?
Originally, we were just going to have some really cool merch and a collectible cup from each decade — because people not only love the food, they love the merch as well. But the team took it a step further and said, “What would headline the Decades menu?” So that’s where you get the Gordita. The Caramel Apple Empanada. The Meximelt. When we combine classic Taco Bell menu items with great merch, we’ve seen incredible results.
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The merch thing is really interesting. It’s one thing to sell food — everyone needs food. But wearing merch requires a very personal relationship with the brand. How can a brand build that kind of relationship?
For any business, you gotta hit people in the head — right price, right strategy, good food. But when you hit people in the heart, that’s when the merch sells.
I love food, but I’m not gonna wear my favorite steak house T-shirt, right? But I wore a Taco Bell coach’s jacket the other day, and somebody asked to buy it off me. When people are so passionate about your brand that they’re going to wear a hoodie, a jacket, something that says, I am with team Taco Bell, you’ve done more than sell price-pointed value menus. That’s when you know you’ve hit somebody in the heart.
I give our brand a lot of credit, because it’s not just about us being a great food brand in the quick-service restaurant category. I’ve always said I want to be a great “big-B” Brand. And when you’re a great Brand, you don’t have the box of QSR, you don’t have the box of food. You can just do things that are cool and different.
What is the difference to you between being a great QSR brand versus a big-B Brand?
All Brands need to have great businesses. How’s our sales? Are we winning in development? How’s the profit line look? But there’s a lot of great businesses that don’t survive because they don’t have a great Brand. They’re very transactional. We have a lot of transactions at Taco Bell, but we also have a lot of emotional relevance with our consumers. To me, a great Brand is one that people have that emotional connection to.
And when you become a great Brand, that’s when people post about you, that’s when people make TikToks about you, that’s when people tell a friend, and that’s when people want to try your new limited-time offer right in the drive-thru. There’s a difference between I’m just gonna go get the food ’cause I’m hungry and I’m gonna go tell the world that I’m connected to Taco Bell.
Let’s go back to the idea of nostalgia. You have been so smart about engaging people’s long-term love of this brand. But if a brand leans too heavily on nostalgia, it becomes a nostalgic brand — a brand that was relevant. How do you engage nostalgia but not be trapped by it?
All great brands can weigh the scales on when it’s appropriate to go back to the past and celebrate an era, and how you keep pushing forward. We want to be a modern brand that is relevant to consumers, both in menu and experience. We’re pushing forward with — we call ’em CEPs: Category Entry Points, whether it’s desserts, beverages.
There’s a lot of people who love the new menu items — not just the Crunchwraps, which are foundational, but the Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme — a Crunchwrap with a 16-times-sized Cheez-It inside of it. But when we can also bring back a Meximelt, then you can combine the great future of the brand with the surprise and delight of the past of the brand.
And there’s a lot of people — my kids included — who’ve never tried a Meximelt. So when you think about Gen Z, who maybe has heard about a Meximelt from their parents, now they get to be part of the experience of: This is different. It’s not the menu today. It’s the menu from the past, and it’s just as good as it was 30 years ago as the menu is today.
Taco Bell does a great job of picking the right partners to collaborate with across the culture, whether it’s Cheez-It today or Doritos about a decade ago. How do you know which one is right?
The one word we like to use when we’re looking at a collaboration — whether it’s with a person, a food item, a sauce — is authenticity. It’s not a word we take lightly. If it’s a person, we always say, “What’s their Taco Bell story?”
We don’t want to just collab with a person who is hot in the culture or just pay somebody to rep the brand. We’re going to partner with a person who authentically loves Taco Bell. So before we even go forward with any particular person — Davante Adams, LeBron James, Doja Cat — believe it or not, they sit down for 20, 30 minutes, and they talk about what Taco Bell meant to them growing up, what street their Taco Bell was located on, what their favorite menu items are. Then you know that they really love and are authentic to the brand.
Related: You Can’t Have a Thriving Business Without Happy Customers. Here’s How to Keep Them in Your Corner.
You can’t sit down and talk to a 16-times-normal-size Cheez-It, though. So how do you pick which other brands to collaborate with?
We always talk about the idea of math and magic. For Cheez-It, the math is that it’s Gen Z’s No. 1 cracker. There’s insight into all of this, which says that our kind of cult is “Gen Z and cultural rebels,” and their cult is kind of “Gen Z cultural rebels.” It’s very similar to Doritos: It’s one of Gen Z’s favorite chips. That’s the math of it, making sure it’s the right thing for our consumers.
Then the magic is: How do we come together and tell a really compelling story with the 16-times Cheez-It and our iconic Crunchwrap? And then you put those two things together, and operations and marketing take it forward. But it always starts with a little bit of math and magic.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Taco Bell
As you settled into the CEO role this year, you spent a few days working at a Taco Bell location. What did you learn from that?
Somebody told me once, “You can’t draw an elephant if you’ve never seen an elephant.” You can take that same philosophy into, “You can’t really set a vision for a large restaurant company if you never worked in the kitchen.” I’d never had restaurant experience, so I decided to go get some.
I worked three shifts in the Taco Bell on Pico in Los Angeles. And it was an incredible experience. I worked a lunch, a dinner, and a late-night shift. I was on the line, which is where you prepare the food. I was sweeping up the parking lot. I was washing dishes. And it was all for the education — not to point out every mistake the team was making. It was to listen, to hear, to learn: How could I help them?
The best part of the experience was, after every shift, I would sit down with the RGM [restaurant general manager], who runs the store, and with the area coach, and we’d talk about the day and everything that happened. What were their observations today? Then I’d go into what I learned. And it’s helping long term. Not everything will be next-day solves — but how we think about the brand, how we think about the calendar, how we think about how the brand comes to life 365? That definitely helps me and helps the team. And actually, I told my team that everybody is going to work a shift every quarter in a store, just to get closer to the team member, just to get closer to the consumer.
When we spoke last year, you said you drive your assistant crazy because you frequently say yes when someone wants to grab coffee and bend your ear. As you’ve gotten busier, how do you keep that line of communication open with your team and franchisees?
I think I still drive her crazy, because it’s hard for me to say no. But we’re doing a lot of stuff internally — shoutout to the Taco Bell internal communications team. We’re sending out quarterly emails. When I worked at the store, we sent out a companywide communication about the experience, why I did it, the outcomes.
You’ve heard the expression “ivory tower brands,” which just sit in corporate. If you’re not talking to the field, if you’re not talking to RGMs, if you’re not talking about franchisees, do you really understand what’s going on in the brand? So we’re doing a lot more to talk to everyone about the state of the business, how they’re feeling, and how we can help them get better — not only long term, but each and every day.
So what does that all add up to, in practice?
I’ll put my answer in terms of strategy, people, and culture. The strategy: We’re doing well — as a brand and as a business. The people: I can’t say enough about their passion, their energy. I have this saying, “Chase greatness in each and every day.” I feel like the people come in, and no matter what function they’re in, we’re all chasing greatness together. So we’ve got a great strategy. Our people are world-class. But mostly importantly, it’s the culture. And the culture is: We’re having a lot of fun. You can’t work at Taco Bell and not have a lot of fun.
Related: ‘A Lot More Innovation in Store’ — Taco Bell’s CMO Says 2025 Will Bring Another Live Más Live and a Return to the Super Bowl. Here’s the Details.
