Routine Republic is a creative and strange viral campaign created by Taco Bell to attack McDonald’s. The TV spots and ads of the campaign show us a repressive dystopian society in which every citizen has the same breakfast and they are all instructed to be always happy. Without naming McDonald’s, a lot of the chosen elements, as the color palette and the clowns, make us think immediately about McDonald’s. The campaign started as mystery marketing. On the website routinerepublic.com (now redirecting to Taco Bell’s website) we were able to see the following video:
In the video, the Taco Bell brand had no mention, we could only see an hexagonal shape as the logo. A second video, posted on YouTube and now removed, is more explicit and tells the story of a young couple who decide to escape from Routine Republic to go to Taco Bell. Several distinctive elements from McDonald’s imagery appear there, but with a sinister twist.
For some reason, Taco Bell decided to remove all evidence of Routine Republic from the internet, including the YouTube videos. Next we can see some of the graphic ads of the campaign. Like the videos, all of them use elements from the communist aesthetics and mock McDonald’s advertising.
It seems the campaign didn’t work, because Taco Bell tried to erase all evidence of its existence