Looking at Taco Bell through the Lens of the VIRO Framework

Austin Beckford
2 min readFeb 22, 2021

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Taco Bell is a huge company with a multitude of resources that help support it’s success. I’d like to look at a couple resources of Taco Bell through this framework.

The first resource I’d like to look at is Taco Bell’s reputation. This is an intangible, socially complex resource. Taco Bell has a reputation for fast, low cost, tasty Mexican-inspired food. This is clearly a valuable resource, but is it imitable? While Taco Bell is the only nationwide competitor in its segment, several other chains provide similar offerings. The West Coast’s Del Taco and Taco Cabana, found in Texas and New Mexico, both check a lot of the same boxes that Taco Bell does, and have similar reputations. Del Taco is more Americanized (they serve traditional french fries), Taco Cabana is more authentic (their restaurants feature a tortilla press), however, both are clearly competing with Taco Bell on several dimensions of their identity.

A dimension that these two companies cannot compete with Taco Bell at is its size. Taco Bell can far outspend and out-promote its competitors in the fast-food Mexican segment. This huge chunk of the market share has value. However, Taco Bell’s substitutes in the fast food industry, such as McDonalds, are able to compete with Taco Bell on this dimension.

However, a resource that Taco Bell employs that fits the VIRO model very well is it’s use of branding partnerships. These are valuable, with Taco Bell enhancing their menu with snack giants such as Doritos and Mountain Dew, brands notable for their viral combination of popularity and cultural impact. While other fast food chains have attempted to imitate such branding partnerships (notably, Burger King has introduced offerings such as the Macaroni and Cheese filled Cheetos, and Froot Loop Milkshakes), none have reached the success Taco Bell has with their partnership. It is not imitable, and there is little indication that there are snack brands that could be easily leveraged to the extent Taco Bell has leveraged it’s partnerships. And, Taco Bell, through its menu instability, has kept these brand partnerships at the forefront of their image, demonstrating that the organization is committed to getting the full benefit of that resource.

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Austin Beckford
Austin Beckford

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