Taco Bell CEO Sean Tresvant on maintaining brand nostalgia

This Is Working with Daniel Roth

Brand awareness is one thing. Brand nostalgia is quite another. Creating is hard enough. Maintaining it may be even harder. But it's second nature to Sean Tresvant, the brand-new CEO of Taco Bell, who cut his teeth in key marketing positions at Nike, Sports Illustrated and PepsiCo. That said, there is nothing ordinary about the challenge of nurturing and maturing this 60-year-old brand. It takes respect for the past and a willingness to charge into the future. "We have a DNA of feeding curiosity for the unconventional," Tresvant told me for the latest edition of This is Working. "We believe that's what Glenn Bell was trying to do 60, 62 years ago when he kind of introduced tacos to the mainstream of the U.S. And we try to carry that DNA for 62 years and 62 years beyond that."

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