Taco Bell’s latest marketing effort isn’t targeted at customers. It’s targeted at employees.
The Mexican fast-food chain on Thursday announced its latest partnership, with the Brooklyn artist Ricardo Gonzalez—also known as It’s a Living—who designed a set of uniforms for employees. The idea is relatively simple, said Kelly McCulloch, chief people and transformation officer with the chain, in an interview.
“This is a cool uniform,” she said.
The uniforms feature t-shirts and hats in black and purple, featuring the phrase, “Family is everything.” It will be part of the rotation of uniforms Taco Bell employees can wear over the coming months.
And though the idea that this is simply a “cool uniform” may sound trite, it is not to the company’s employees. While pay and benefits are clearly the most important element luring employees to a job, many restaurants have discovered in the past couple of years that other elements matter, too—the design of the restaurant, for instance, or whether the uniforms look good.
“We’re making sure they have a uniform they’re excited about,” McCulloch said. “It’s our way of tipping our hat to the team member. We see you. We know you’re working hard. We want you to feel good when working for us.”
Ricardo Gonzalez, or It's a Living. / Photo courtesy of Taco Bell.
For Taco Bell, there are important long-term considerations to the idea of keeping team members happy. McCulloch noted that 54% of the chain’s general managers started out as team members and worked their way up.
And though the company says that the labor shortage that dogged much of the industry last year is easing—retention is up as is application flow, she said—uniforms remain an important recruiting tool for the chain and its franchisees.
The company has also discovered that uniforms are marketing. And Taco Bell employees are also Taco Bell’s target customers. If Taco Bell employees like the uniform, in other words, so will the chain’s customers.
Taco Bell introduced special uniforms last year when it had the streetwear maker Born x Raised design some to mark the chain’s 60th birthday. Those uniforms can still be spotted on occasion at Taco Bell locations.
For this one, the marketing team reached out to Gonzalez, a designer and artist from Durango, Mexico, who currently lives in Brooklyn. His style can be seen in large-scale murals and commercial work for large brands. “When you look at his work, it’s evident why they chose him,” McCulloch said. “It goes with our brand.”
Taco Bell is covering the cost of the uniforms. Stores will get a shipment of the uniforms and stores can keep them in their uniform rotation for as long as they want, she said.
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