We Found Love in a Hopeless Place

The corporate brand obsession with young love

By Alana Levinson

Taco Bell wants you to know that it isn’t just a place for a drunken double decker or road trip chalupa. It’s where teens — or what advertisers now call “centennials” — FALL IN LOVE. And there are some highly produced photoshoots to prove it. Look at the brand’s Instagram account, and you’ll quickly learn some hard truths about the life of a teen in 2015.

They give each other taco 12-packs for Valentine’s Day:

Sip on baja blasts, while sticking to gendered color preferences:

Consult brands on “how to get the girl” to go to #Homecoming with you:

Interlace fingers while going in on some nachos:

Love #TacoBellBreakfast so much it’s actually A Thing. A Romantic Thing:

Share freezes (and kisses, of course):

Ask people to prom via #TacoBellPromposals:

Corporate Pizza employs a similar tactic, though they interestingly skew a little older. After all, the price of an entire pizza is a lot to ask a 15-year-old. Or maybe they know ordering a large pepperoni with a side of cheese sticks to your shitty apartment just perfectly hits that millennial nostalgia button.

We propose with a slice, because our generation can’t afford rings:

Casually feed each other:

Have hipster pizza picnics (with wings?)!!!!

Enjoy an after-pizza glow, because who needs sex:

Brands targeting young love of course isn’t new — think of a classic Coca-Cola advertising situation, where two young lovers with 1950s hairdos and sweaters share cokes:

They’re obviously taking an old-school advertising strategy and applying it to newer brands and platforms. But I think making a gordita cute is harder to pull off. There isn’t much that’s romantic about oily cheese tendrils and old meat pebbles. Just take a look at this beast:

Then again, I’m a millennial old; what do I know? At 27, I’m a good 10 years away from the target audience for these posts. Most of these posts have over 20,000 likes and comments like “goals” and “this is soo u” and “babe take notes” and “YES OMG.” If #engagement is the measure for success, then Taco Bell’s Instagram has a Sterling-Cooper level of sophistication. And after housing tacos, these kids are taking each other’s virginities in the Taco Bell parking lot.

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