True Story: When I was 15, my little sister (who was in middle school at the time) was just beginning her complicated, confusing and utterly aggravating journey from childhood to the pre-teen, media infused sex symbol that she, and every girl, is pressured to become by the time they hit high school. Although she was already thin, she became obsessed with losing weight and was willing to try any hair-brained, miracle diet that she came across. She eventually landed on the all ice cream diet. Seriously. She ate nothing but ice cream for every meal for weeks. To this day, I have no idea where she heard about this diet but needless to say, it didn’t work.

In a time when this country is measurably at its fattest, don’t think for one second that savvy marketing agencies working on behalf of fast food companies aren’t seeing the opportunity to combine people’s fears with people’s addictions.

Take for example, Taco Bell’s new Drive-Thru Diet. This is essentially Taco Bell’s rip off version of the Subway “Jared” campaign. The “Jared” for Taco Bell is Christine, the one person in history who actually lost weight from eating Taco Bell. Her results are completely atypical, which is acknowledged (in fine print) by Taco Bell, but that hasn’t stopped them from embracing her story and implementing their Drive-Thru Diet menu.

The idea of getting to eat Taco Bell and not feel bad about it is highly intriguing to those who struggle with food addictions, but the fact of the matter is, although it’s called a “diet,” there’s nothing about it designed for weight loss. Check out the print at the bottom of the menu page, none of this stuff is designed to help you lose weight, none of it is even low-calorie food. It’s simply food with lesser calories than other menu items, by Taco Bell’s own admission.

Vaguely alluding to possible weight loss is enticing to people who depend on fast food. However, the Drive-Thru Diet is only the tip of the marketing iceberg for Taco Bell. If you head over to get your coupon for a FREE TACO and do a little poking around, you find that Taco Bell socially markets like crazy. Aside from the typical event sponsorships and demos, Taco Bell is heavily involved in more contemporary facets of social networking

- Did you know that Taco Bell has a Facebook? They do. Currently, they have over 730,000 fans.

- Taco Bell has a few Twitter accounts, including one for their traveling sample mobile, the Taco Bell Truck.

- Don’t get enough Taco Bell figuratively shoved down your throat via TV? No worries, Taco Bell has its own Youtube page, chock full of viral video caloric content.  

- If it’s 2:30 PM and you haven’t eaten since lunch and are feeling the need to run for the border but wouldn’t you know it – stupid employment gets in the way of what could be an awesome taco run, no worries. Taco Bell has an iPhone app that allows customers to find the nearest Bell, peruse menu items and new additions and even figure out the maximum number of items they can get for the money in their wallet.

Whether it’s Tweets, viral vids, traveling taco trucks, Facebook friend requests or ridiculous diet concepts, Taco Bell comes at you online, on the phone, on TV, in the street and in the drive-thru.

All this taco talk got me hungry…Taco Bell truck anyone?

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