Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner could there be a fourth meal?
In attempt to attract hungry customers with a late night craving Taco Bell has recently introduced the idea of a “fourth meal” meant to attract customers to eat an additional meal after dinner time. Taco Bell is trying to introduce this “discovered” meal by targeting people who are out late at night and have evening cravings that they would normally satisfy by splurging on snacks or other fast food chains. On the Taco Bell website (found below) under Fourth Meal they use the phrase “You’re out late, you’re hungry, you’re doin’ Fourth Meal” to advertise their new idea and as a way to advertise their new products.
This technique used my Taco Bell, is ingenious. By creating this idea of a fourth meal, customers who know about this new advertisement roaming the streets late at night are much more likely to go out of their way to eat at a Taco Bell, ultimately increasing revenues for the company. Taco Bell is basically trying to gain market control over human cravings in the evening by adopting a name (fourth meal) to their late night menu items. However, whether or not this proves to be an effective strategy or not will be determined in time.
This marketing campaign does however bring up ethical issues that need to be thought about. Americans obesity rates are constantly rising and Taco Bell’s introduction of a Fourth Meal and later operating hours does not help this issue whatsoever. Would this have any effect on whether or not people will attend “Fourth Meal?” This issue is similar to the recent decision by Tim Hortons to demolish the “small” size cups in American outlets making every cup larger so that an extra large and all other sizes are much larger than before. Tim Hortons is promoting more consumption of unnecessary food similar to Taco Bell’s late night consumption campaign.
Taco Bells website promoting their new fourth meal idea http://www.tacobell.com/fourthmeal