Earlier tonight, I was watching a movie down in the living room when my roommate shuffled in. Now, for background: this guy will probably have sports on during his wedding, ESPN will most likely cost him his first marriage, and he’ll probably have the game on during the divorce settlement.

So - like I said, my roommate shuffled in.

“Hey dude, did you hear about the taco thing during the game?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The Taco Bell -”

Suddenly, I remembered. In 2004, Taco Bell had a promotion going that during the World Series, if someone hit a homerun in a specific spot, they would offer a free taco to everyone who came in. Sounds cool enough, right? Fuck no, if you think about it, which he didn’t.

So, I take the time to explain how it isn’t cool, how he was affected by the marketing behind it, everything. He gave me a blank stare, as if I were speaking a different language.

This absolutely stunned me. I mean, I know he’s not the smartest guy in the bunch when it comes to marketing tactics, but damn. He was the perfect corporate whore. After talking to him a bit more, he didn’t even know that Taco Bell was practically shitting out money to MLB, Inc. (yes, they’re a company) to plaster the fact that they were giving away statistically improbable tacos that cost next to nothing compared to the profits from the other items they’ll sell. He still didn’t understand.

“So, you want a taco, right?”
“Yeah…”
“Is that all you’re going to buy?”
“Well, no, I’d get other stuff.”
“And would you normally go to Taco Bell if they weren’t giving away some shit taco?”
(Rhetorical question. Taco Bell’s 40 minutes from here, and he doesn’t like to drive to buy groceries.)

Marketing permeated his brain so thoroughly that he couldn’t even realize why a company would do something for profit. He honestly thought it was a cool, altruistic gesture on behalf of that lovely Taco Bell company.

Not everyone’s like this, are they?

Related:

Original article from 2004

Seriously, we can’t all be this stupid. Even other marketing sites point to how great this is.