Taco Bell builds a “slide-thru” window

Taco Bell is bringing back the Cheetos Crunchwrap Slider, and its giving visitors to a ski resort the option to order one without leaving the hill.

At the top of a hill at Horseshoe Resort near Barrie, Ontario, tubers can place their orders at a Taco Bell “slide-thru,” picking it up from a custom-built takeout window once they reach the bottom.

Veronica Castillo, head of marketing at Taco Bell Canada, says consumers have come to expect “unique, exciting and off-the-wall events” from the brand. Given that the Cheetos Crunchwrap Slider – which, as the name suggests, is the QSR’s crunchwrap combined with Cheddar Jalapeño-flavoured Cheetos – has traditionally been one of its most popular limited-time offers, she says it needed to do something as “audacious” as the product itself with something that hadn’t been done before. Previous marketing for the product has included making it the centrepiece of a search for a permanent host for the brand’s Snapchat account.

Taco Bell is promoting the stunt as the world’s first “slide-thru,” but brands in Canada have previously looked to the top of the country’s mountains for activations. For National French Fry Day last year, McDonald’s installed a drive-thru speaker on top of a mountain in Vancouver as part of a live stream. Lexus also previously set up a drive-thru at a ski hill in Quebec, though customers had to drive through a snowy obstacle course, showing off the vehicle’s all-wheel drive capabilities.

Grip is the creative agency on the activation, with Wavemaker handling media and Edelman on PR. It will take place on March 2, with the Cheetos Crunchwrap Slider returning to stores on Feb. 25.