Taco Bell cracking code on Young Men’s Digital World.

Ronalee Zarate-Bayani is charged with developing the strategy for Taco Bell’s social media and mobile marketing efforts, and for ensuring customers have a positive experience with the brand across all digital touchpoints.

Earlier this year, when an Alabama law firm filed suit against Taco Bell alleging the fast food chain was misleading customers about the ingredients in its tacos, the chain countered by placing its comic book-style series of “Super Delicious Ingredient Force” videos on social media platforms. While the class-action suit was dropped on April 19, the synchronicity of events speaks to Taco Bell’s desire for transparency with its customers.

Zarate-Bayani spoke with eMarketer Writer/Analyst Tobi Elkin about Taco Bell’s tactics for engaging its primary target, men ages 18 to 34, with online video distributed via social media.

eMarketer: Taco Bell’s target demographic is men 18-to-34. What’s the secret sauce in terms of successful engagement with this group?

Ronalee Zarate-Bayani: We’ve created original video content as a way to supplement our efforts around social and mobile media. Our online video content is about creating extended experiences for our target customers.

Over the last year, we launched our Taco Bell Super Delicious Ingredient Force series of online videos. The videos live on our YouTube and Facebook pages. They feature the ingredients as superheroes with the idea that they’re always combating something. We debuted the first video in the series in May 2010 to support the launch of our $2 Meal Deals—three items for $2.

eMarketer: Why did Taco Bell decide to create original online video content?

“We know that humor and comics resonate really well with this demographic, so we developed our own comics.”

Zarate-Bayani: We were looking for a relevant way to bring the superhero ingredient concept to life for our digital audience. We know that humor and comics resonate really well with this demographic, so we developed our own comics. The comic book artist Neal Adams drew the characters—he’s done Superman, Batman and the X-Men. The episodes are about 4 to 5 minutes long and have a very retro ’70s feel.

eMarketer: Tell me more about the videos and how they tie into Facebook and Twitter.

Zarate-Bayani: There are five videos in the series that went live in May, July, October, November and the most recent one, released in February 2011. We try to make the videos part of a robust, 360-degree digital experience so we tie them into Facebook, Twitter and our YouTube page. Each of the characters has its own Facebook page, which we see as a way of inviting people to experience the characters as an extension of our brand.

We have nearly a million views of the videos on our YouTube channel alone. That doesn’t count all the forwards, as well as people posting the videos to their blogs and so forth. We know we’ve had exponentially more views than what shows up on our YouTube channel. Our agency tracks all the views.

eMarketer: What is the brand learning based on this experience about how young men consume and engage with online video?

Zarate-Bayani: We’ve found that the digital space is a young man’s virtual world. They access this world in so many different ways within the digital medium.

They access our content through their mobile phones, so it was really important for us to make sure that they could see the videos on their mobile devices. They access YouTube on mobile, so that’s key. It’s important for us to go where they go and not to try to bring them to us. We have to be where they naturally already are.

eMarketer: What do you notice about this group’s engagement with your brand on YouTube vs. Twitter vs. Facebook?

“They spend a lot more time on YouTube watching video, repeating the clip and sharing it.”

Zarate-Bayani: They spend a lot more time on YouTube watching video, repeating the clip and sharing it. With Twitter, they might spend maybe 5 seconds. You post a tweet, you’re out and you’re done. Facebook is probably somewhere in the middle of the two. Young men may spend a few minutes on the page, read a few updates, post a few updates, leave, come back.

eMarketer: How do you track video’s performance back to sales?

Zarate-Bayani: The ROI question is tricky. We view online video and social media as long-term investments. We’re trying to enable and equip our brand advocates in the spaces where they normally go and live their lives. We measure the extent to which our fans advocate for us and offer shout-outs through social media.

eMarketer: What are the three most important best practices for marketers to remember when strategizing campaigns for this demo?

Zarate-Bayani: First, we’ve found the online behaviors and offline behaviors for this demographic are different. It’s been very important for us to fully understand that so that we can communicate with them in the most relevant way.

“Whatever content we put out there—video or otherwise—must be compelling from the get-go.”

Second, whatever messaging we do, whatever content we put out there—video or otherwise—must be compelling from the get-go. It must be compelling from the first sentence, or from the first 5 seconds of the video, or whatever the case might be. Our target is being marketed to in so many ways and torn in so many directions in the digital space. If you don’t get guys from the get-go, you’ll lose them.

Third, authenticity is key. Be true to your brand and transparent with customers. We don’t hide behind being a big brand. We try to interact with our customers in the social media space the way we would with a close friend.

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