How Taco Bell Won a $45M Lawsuit and Took Over Culture

Speaker 0 (0:00): Hey, everybody. I gotta tell you. We're gonna talk about BUILT. BUILT hospitality. Millions of people use BUILT every day.

Speaker 0 (0:07): That's right. Every day to earn rewards on housing and in their neighborhood. But now now it extends to your restroom. That's where Built Hospitality comes in. Built Hospitality shapes how guests are recognized and taken care of.

Speaker 0 (0:21): Built's restaurant facing platform is designed specifically for dining operators to drive loyalty with their guests. It combines reservations, guest preferences, VIP management, and payments all into one platform alongside an agentic concierge. That's right. An AI concierge that thoughtfully designs and executes experiences around your guest tastes. Using the latest and greatest in AI technology.

Speaker 0 (0:50): When a guest walks in, your team already knows what they like without digging through notes. Built Hospitality works across the entire guest journey. That's right. The entire guest journey from delivering a complimentary course at the right moment, just the right moment, sending a personalized offer that brings them coming back again and again and again. That's right.

Speaker 0 (1:12): That's what Built Hospitality is doing. It is allowing you to communicate with your guests and keep them coming back over and over. Make every guest feel like a regular every time, not just their first time, every time. They're a regular. Built Hospitality is available now for restaurant groups everywhere.

Speaker 0 (1:29): Learn more at builtdining.com backslash hangout. That's builtdining.com backslash hangout, and check out what Built Hospitality is gonna do for you and your restaurant.

Jimmy Frischling (1:41): To take out a full page ad in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The USA Today with the headline, thank you for suing us.

Unknown Speaker (1:52): Live from DIRECTV for Business Studios in New York City, It's the hospitality hangout podcast. I gotta tell you, Jimmy, we had a great guest. Today's guest is one of those legendary figures in the in the history in the history of fast food. He's the man who turned Taco Bell from branding crisis into a global lifestyle icon. He led three of the most iconic restaurant brands on the planet across 48,000 locations in a 140 countries.

Unknown Speaker (2:18): He wrote the book literally on modern marketing, and I happen to know he's got some Taco Bell gift cards in his wallet right now. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome mister Greg Curry to the hospitality hangout.

Jimmy Frischling (2:31): I have the privilege of welcoming Greg, more formally to the hospitality hangout. We are we are a hospitality focused crew. I'm Jimmy Frischling. I am branded finance guy. I had the privilege of sitting across the table from my brother from another mother, mister Michael Schatzberg, aka Shatzy, aka the restaurant guy.

Jimmy Frischling (2:51): I gotta be honest. I did some research before this conversation.

Unknown Speaker (2:54): Yes, Jimmy.

Jimmy Frischling (2:55): And we're gonna dive into this show. We're gonna bring Greg in, but, you know, two key takeaways Yes, Greg. As as we dive in first. Greg has one of the most really career origin stories in the industry from a kid in Brisbane, who ended up running one of the biggest restaurant companies in the world. Okay?

Jimmy Frischling (3:13): Watching planes, great stuff from his one of his early kindergarten or preschool teachers, predictive about Greg, but that's gonna be part of the story. And then second, he said no to ranch dressing. No. He said no. A kid from Brisbane ends up running one of the largest restaurant companies in the world, and he said no to ranch.

Speaker 0 (3:32): Greg, why don't we bring you in? Why don't we bring you in? And let's hear let's hear because we can say you're from Brisbane, but nobody's gonna know until we hear you. Welcome to the show. It's great to have you.

Speaker 0 (3:41): We love the accent.

Unknown Speaker (3:42): I told my son when he was much younger when he came to The States, don't lose your accent because you you would it makes you stand out. It makes you distinctive. It you different.

Unknown Speaker (3:49): It definitely if definitely, I gotta tell you, I think the ladies like the accent. So let's jump into it, mister Creed. So born in Brisbane Correct. Brisbane Yeah. Australia.

Unknown Speaker (3:59): As Jimmy said, I don't know what I don't know why you're watching planes. I don't where your house was, but apparently, you're watching planes take off and land all the time.

Greg Creed (4:07): Yeah. No. It's funny. My dad was a sales guy at Nestle. So he was in sales at Nestle.

Greg Creed (4:12): And so he would travel a fair bit. And I'm going back. I'm I'm old. Like, I'm 68. So we're going back a long, long time where you could walk up to the fence at the airport.

Unknown Speaker (4:20): There was, you know, forget

Unknown Speaker (4:21): No security.

Greg Creed (4:22): No. God, no. No security. Nothing. Right.

Unknown Speaker (4:24): And the joke was You have a

Speaker 0 (4:26): picnic right on the runway.

Unknown Speaker (4:27): Oh, easily. And the joke was my mom used to joke and say, they could have left me there all day. I was quite happy to stay there and watch the planes take off and land. I've always had a fascination around flying. So You do.

Unknown Speaker (4:38): About twenty some years ago, I got my pilot's license. And I learned to fly in Orange

Unknown Speaker (4:44): like a Cessna kind of plane?

Unknown Speaker (4:45): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I learned to fly Cessnas, and then I bought a little Diamond Star, which is similar to a Cessna. And then it's funny it's funny story.

Greg Creed (4:53): I made the mistake one day of showing David Novak, who was my boss. He was running he was running Yamaha, was running Taco Bell. And because I could get onto the into the onto the tarmac, into the airport, I said, look, I'll drop you right at the stairs of the jet rather than you have to go through the FBO. And now as we're driving along, I go, oh, there's my plane. He goes, what do mean that's your plane?

Unknown Speaker (5:12): I go, yeah, that's the plane that I fly. He goes, well, that's way too small. Like, well, what do you think I fly? I don't fly a jet. Don't pay me enough to fly.

Unknown Speaker (5:19): You Right. Said Right. You had a $7.47.

Unknown Speaker (5:21): Exactly. And so this is serious. This is true. The next day, he sends me a text or an email, whatever it was, probably an email. And he goes, I've been speaking to the board.

Unknown Speaker (5:30): You can choose to be one of two presidents. You can choose to be one of two p's. A president or a pilot. Choose wisely. And I literally had to give up flying, you know, worried about me, you know.

Unknown Speaker (5:41): Well, yeah. No. A 100%. They probably got a big, big, bigger life insurance policy. Know, what are they?

Speaker 0 (5:47): Key key man insurance. Right?

Unknown Speaker (5:49): So yeah. So I've I've always loved flying. Got my pilot's flight.

Unknown Speaker (5:52): Are you still are you still flying today?

Unknown Speaker (5:54): I have a plane, but I have someone else fly it because it's I'm getting too old and it's You're getting too old. Yeah. Old. Is it a

Unknown Speaker (5:59): bigger plane now? What do you got? You got like a jet?

Unknown Speaker (6:00): Look at geez. I a no. Have a it's called a Pilatus PC 24.

Unknown Speaker (6:05): What's that?

Greg Creed (6:06): It's twin engine jet made in Switzerland.

Unknown Speaker (6:09): Really?

Greg Creed (6:10): It is magnificent. It is magnificent. It's one of the one of the the things you you miss many things when you retire. As jokingly every every CEO has ever had a you know, had a corporate jet. The thing they miss most is flying around in a corporate jet because

Unknown Speaker (6:24): Well, is really I gotta tell you. This is a good segue. Okay? Because we wanna know. Okay?

Speaker 0 (6:28): How a guy a guy from Brisbane, Australia.

Unknown Speaker (6:32): Yep. Right?

Unknown Speaker (6:33): Yeah. He's working at a supermarket when he's 17 years old

Unknown Speaker (6:37): Yep.

Unknown Speaker (6:37): Stocking shelves. Yep. Gets to own his own jet plane. Tell us. Tell us how.

Speaker 0 (6:43): How do we do it?

Greg Creed (6:44): I was to be fair, I did work at a supermarket, but I was at university. So I was at university during the day, doing a business degree. And then I was working, yeah, three nights a week from, 10PM to 2AM stock in the shelves and getting paid to do that. And then when I I left when I when I graduated, I joined Unilever, Lever Brothers, so the people that make soap and did Wait.

Unknown Speaker (7:09): Let me ask you. So did your like, did your dad your dad was at Nestle. Was he already at Nestle? Did Did he hook you up with an interview?

Greg Creed (7:16): No. Was no. Did. Though it was interesting. I interviewed with all that I was gonna get a job in packaged goods, CPG, because I wanted to live.

Greg Creed (7:23): I eventually wanted to live and work overseas. And I thought I can either pay myself or I or I can join a company like a Unilever or Nestle, Kimberley, Coca Cola, Pepsi, doesn't matter. Right? So Right. I interviewed with all of them.

Greg Creed (7:36): And Unilever in Australia is more like Procter and Gamble in The US. They're they're much bigger in what I call the old British colonies. So they had about a 50 share of everything. The children's personal products, household cleaning, you name it. So it's a big company.

Greg Creed (7:50): Sorry. I was huge. I mean, Unilever's a huge company.

Unknown Speaker (7:53): No. I know they're huge now, but I mean, you know, Australia when you were there, they were big companies.

Greg Creed (7:56): Oh, they they were they were massive. Right? It it was like going to work at Procter and Gamble. I mean, if you said, hey. I worked, you know, in in Australia where I worked at Unilever, worked at Procter and Gamble.

Unknown Speaker (8:06): So Right. I worked

Unknown Speaker (8:08): between that and the accent, I gotta tell you, there was no stopping you. Am I right?

Greg Creed (8:11): I know. Well, interesting thing is in those days, you had to spend time in sales before you got into marketing, which is one of the best things I think that ever happened to me. Because I think often marketeers can be very esoteric and not very practical. And so I spent a year actually, ended up spending two years in sales. I got transferred to a place called Townsville, which no one's gonna know is 1,200 miles north of Brisbane.

Greg Creed (8:32): It's like the middle of it's on the it's on the Barrier Reef, which is fantastic. But it is a long way from anywhere.

Unknown Speaker (8:38): And that was an up and coming town at

Unknown Speaker (8:40): the time. That was an up and coming town. It's still an up and coming town.

Unknown Speaker (8:43): That's what I that's what I meant. Yeah. They say you're like, oh, I'm telling you this is gonna be something. What? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (8:48): Five hundred years. Five hundred years.

Greg Creed (8:50): Exactly. So I end I end up back in Sydney in marketing, and then I I got lucky. There was the guy who ran half of the the the the detergent's wealth unilever. He came out to visit. And it's funny.

Greg Creed (9:01): I didn't know this at the time, but he was very English. His name was Dirk Redell. Really nice guy. So what do I do? I throw a barbecue, not realizing because barbies are very big in Australia.

Greg Creed (9:11): Not realizing that Dirk thinks barbecues are essentially

Unknown Speaker (9:13): Just that you get to say barbie?

Unknown Speaker (9:15): Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (9:16): The Barbie? The Barbie.

Unknown Speaker (9:17): We know it has to be big. Yeah. Because you can say, the Barbie. Like, if you get right?

Greg Creed (9:21): So I throw this Barbie not knowing that that

Unknown Speaker (9:24): The Barbie.

Greg Creed (9:24): Dirk thinks this is, like, close to cannibalism. You know, his idea of slumming it is a three star, you know, three star Michelin

Speaker 0 (9:32): Well, you're not eating kangaroo, are you?

Unknown Speaker (9:34): No. God. No. Although they do eat it these days. Not in those days.

Unknown Speaker (9:36): Even my dogs wouldn't eat kangaroo. Anyway Oh, is that right? See Jimmy's enjoying his Baja Blast. That's good. Anyway.

Unknown Speaker (9:42): Jimmy Jimmy be done with it by the time you're done with the story. He'll be done with that

Unknown Speaker (9:45): Baja I know. I'm trying to get through the story. Anyway, so eventually, he he takes me to London to work for him. So I'm essentially I call it the bag carrier. You know, the guy the junior guy that carries the bag.

Greg Creed (9:56): Sure. And I get to travel all around the world. I get to go to meetings I should never have gone to because I'm only 28 at the time. And after two years there they sent me off to New York to run the Dove brand. Wait so I can't get home with Unilever.

Greg Creed (10:10): I joined PepsiCo thinking well they'll give me a Frito Lay job or a Pepsi job. Thank you. And they say oh we want you to be the Chief Marketing Officer for KFC in Australia. I've never worked in restaurants in my life. Now, so I think, okay, well, if I go home and this doesn't work out, I'm back in Australia.

Unknown Speaker (10:26): Yeah. At least you got a ticket home. Least I

Unknown Speaker (10:28): got a ticket home. I can free ride home. Right. And if it doesn't work out, then, you know, I'll find another job. You're home.

Greg Creed (10:34): I'll find another job in Australia. So I fell in love. As a marketer, I fell in love with with restaurants and food. Not because I'm a foodie in the classic sense, but I I just had a great time. And KFC in Australia is it's more like Chick fil A here.

Greg Creed (10:48): They do like $56,000,000 a year. It's amazing. It's an amazing business. In fact Right.

Unknown Speaker (10:53): So when when

Speaker 0 (10:53): you got there, like, what was what was KFC? Mean, as a kid, you, like, ate KFC

Greg Creed (10:58): in Australia. Was it big already? I ate more McDonald's in KFC than anyone else in Australia when I was at

Unknown Speaker (11:04): You did?

Greg Creed (11:04): When I was young and and a university knew.

Speaker 0 (11:07): So you're like, wow. This is pretty cool. KFC is pretty cool.

Greg Creed (11:10): Oh, yeah. It's a very cool brand, does incredibly well. Right. And we got to we got to do some fantastic marketing stuff. And this will shock you, but KFC Australia with 27,000,000 people makes more profit for Yum than KFC US with 300,000,000 people.

Unknown Speaker (11:27): Yeah. No. I believe it,

Unknown Speaker (11:28): man. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (11:29): Because I've I've seen the Australians. They're all they're all overweight.

Greg Creed (11:33): No. I call it body by burrito. That's fine.

Speaker 0 (11:37): Hey, everybody. I gotta tell you. We're gonna talk about BUILT. Build hospitality. Millions of people use BUILT every day.

Speaker 0 (11:44): That's right. Every day to earn awards on housing and in their neighborhood. But now now it extends to your restaurant. That's where BUILT Hospitality comes in. BUILT Hospitality shapes how guests are recognized and taken care of.

Speaker 0 (11:58): BUILT's restaurant facing platform is designed specifically for dining operators to drive loyalty with their guests. It combines reservations, guest preferences, VIP management, and payments all into one platform along side an agentic concierge. That's right. An AI concierge that thoughtfully designs and executes experiences around your guest tastes using the latest and greatest in AI technology. When a guest walks in, your team already knows what they like without digging through notes.

Speaker 0 (12:33): Built Hospitality works across the entire guest journey. That's right. The entire guest journey from delivering a complimentary course at the right moment, just the right moment, sending a personalized offer that brings them coming back again and again and again. That's right. That's what Built Hospitality is doing.

Speaker 0 (12:51): It is allowing you to communicate with your guests and keep them coming back over and over. Make every guest feel like a regular every time, not just their first time, every time. They're a regular. Built Hospitality is available now for restaurant groups everywhere. Learn more at builtdining.com backslash Hangout.

Speaker 0 (13:09): That's builtdining.combackslashhangout, and check out what Built Hospitality is gonna do for you and your restaurant.

Unknown Speaker (13:19): Alright. I want Greg, I wanna jump in here.

Unknown Speaker (13:21): Yeah. Yeah, Jimmy.

Jimmy Frischling (13:22): I wanna jump in. You you take over as the CEO in 2011 Yeah. Of Taco Bell. Yeah. And and this is really to our listeners, get ready because we're gonna talk we're gonna we're gonna have a great good we're gonna have a fun time with this turnaround story, maybe among the most dramatic

Unknown Speaker (13:38): Right.

Jimmy Frischling (13:38): In quick serve restaurant history. Become the CEO in February Yep. 2011. Uh-huh. And literally within a couple of weeks of taking the chair, your brain gets sued in class action suit

Unknown Speaker (13:51): Yeah.

Jimmy Frischling (13:51): Claiming it's beef wasn't actually beef.

Unknown Speaker (13:53): Correct.

Jimmy Frischling (13:54): Okay? Because You're in the chair. Couple weeks later, you're getting a class action lawsuit. Yep. The lawyers, the attorneys allege that, your your your your product's only 35% beef.

Unknown Speaker (14:03): Right.

Jimmy Frischling (14:04): And your response, which is just, I think, one for the ages, is you take out a full page ad in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The USA Today Yep. With a headline, thank you for suing us. Yes. I think that's one of the most audacious moves that I've ever seen. What's going through your mind, and how does the CEO make that kind of call?

Greg Creed (14:24): Well, first of all, it was a crap lawsuit. I mean, it they they sued us for 45,000,000. It was plaintiff's attorneys in Birmingham found some lady in San Diego to sue us for 45,000,000. And we we knew that, you know, you're right. They said we didn't have enough beef in the in the in our meat, right?

Greg Creed (14:43): Which was complete crap. So but what tends to happen is everyone goes all the lawyers go, well, you know, maybe we can settle this for, I don't know, 4,000,000 or some some of them.

Unknown Speaker (14:51): Right. If you ask for 50,

Unknown Speaker (14:53): maybe you'll get 5.

Unknown Speaker (14:54): Yeah. Exactly. Right. Sure. So I said to them, I'm not paying a penny.

Greg Creed (14:58): And in fact, in the ad, when we said thank you for suing us, we had we then listed the formula and included and one of the things I said is I'm not paying a penny. Right? And, so I I made it very clear. This is bullshit. I shouldn't say that.

Unknown Speaker (15:11): This is BS.

Unknown Speaker (15:12): That's okay. You're allowed.

Unknown Speaker (15:13): You can say that here.

Greg Creed (15:14): Okay. This is bullshit and I'm not paying it. Right? And Howard Draft was the guy that came up with the headline. He was a draft FCB.

Greg Creed (15:21): So he came up with a headline. What I what I also love, there's two other parts of the story. There's one part everyone else knows and this part not everyone knows. Three months later, they withdrew the lawsuit. You know, 45 became 25, became 14, became four.

Greg Creed (15:35): And I kept saying, see the thing it says we're not paying a penny. Anyway, when they

Unknown Speaker (15:39): withdrew What the free tacos for a year? It's like Kramer.

Unknown Speaker (15:42): When they withdrew the lawsuit, we're doing another headline that said, would it kill you to say you're sorry?

Unknown Speaker (15:49): Right.

Greg Creed (15:49): And now but this gets even better. Because I'm a very vindictive person if you come after my brand, my franchisee, Don Gurribe in who lived in Birmingham, Alabama, we found out where the plaintiff's attorneys played golf. I bought every billboard around every entrance to drive to this golf club that said, see, we never paid a penny. And so when these guys went to golf, every all their mates are giving them shit for saying, oh, you went off to Taco Bell and you didn't get a penny. So there was the initial headline, the follow-up headline, but there was also And

Unknown Speaker (16:22): the billboards.

Greg Creed (16:23): The billboards. So guess and you know what's interesting? Since then, Yum has never had another plaintiff's lawsuit.

Unknown Speaker (16:32): Because you know why? Because they it's always the same thing, man. They they go where they think they can get paid. Exactly. The lawyer can't get then they go somewhere else and be like, oh, no.

Unknown Speaker (16:41): No. I can't go. That Greg Creed fuck that guy. I ain't going to that guy. Exactly.

Unknown Speaker (16:45): He's not opening up his wallet.

Unknown Speaker (16:47): Yeah. So it was

Unknown Speaker (16:48): Let's go sue McDonald's.

Greg Creed (16:49): No. Exactly. And so I I think too often, the lawyers sort of think they're in charge, and they wanna settle for a couple of million because it's cheaper than fighting them. And I'm like, no. This is bullshit, and it's not right, and we're not paying.

Greg Creed (17:02): And it's a principle I'm gonna stand on, and I think it turned out incredibly well for us.

Speaker 0 (17:08): So you managed to keep your job over there after this because you just got your job. The board's probably looking at you like, is this

Unknown Speaker (17:14): guy insane?

Unknown Speaker (17:15): Yeah. I mean, why don't we just give him $5,000,000? Be done with it. Move on. This guy's insane.

Speaker 0 (17:20): Give him give him a couple. We just hired him. We we pay the headhunter yet. Give him a little chance. Like, let's wait.

Speaker 0 (17:25): Let's wait. So, you know, it ends up going going your way.

Unknown Speaker (17:30): Right? Going that way. Exactly.

Speaker 0 (17:31): And now so now you settle in and you're like, alright. Now I'm done with this bullshit lawsuit. I gotta roll up my sleeves and get going. Right. And you come up with something.

Unknown Speaker (17:38): Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (17:39): You love Doritos as a child. You always ate Doritos.

Unknown Speaker (17:42): Yes.

Unknown Speaker (17:42): Love Doritos.

Unknown Speaker (17:43): Now you should cheat.

Unknown Speaker (17:44): What better thing? Take Doritos. Yep. And I make a taco. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (17:49): 450,000,000 tacos later. Yeah Jimmy response for most.

Unknown Speaker (17:57): Okay That's a good taco

Speaker 0 (17:58): greatest product launch. Not just in restaurant history and all of retail history.

Unknown Speaker (18:06): It could be

Speaker 0 (18:06): bigger than the iPhone bigger than the iPhone.

Unknown Speaker (18:10): We might be getting a little a little carried away right now. But anyway,

Speaker 0 (18:13): we're not. I have I just claudered that I used to chat now. I clawed clauding. Yeah. And I gotta tell you the biggest product launch ever in the history.

Speaker 0 (18:22): Tell us how you came up with it. What were you thinking? Was it your idea? Does Jimmy take credit? Who's taking credit for this?

Greg Creed (18:29): I'm definitely not taking credit. It was interesting. In thousand and twelve, Taco Bell was gonna turn 50. And because Glenn Bell had first started Taco Bell into in 1962. And what I said to the team is, look, we we can't celebrate turning 50 because we're not a 50 year old brand.

Greg Creed (18:47): Like, we're we're a a young, hip, cool brand. Right? So the last thing you could do is go, oh, wow. We're 50. Let's celebrate.

Greg Creed (18:53): So I said to them, I want you to find a taco product. Because the other thing, we've done a lot of work around quesadillas and Crunchwraps and burritos. And I said, look, we're not Crunchwrap Bell. We're not Burrito Bell. We're Taco Bell.

Greg Creed (19:03): So go find me a taco idea to not only celebrate, but to really, I think, make Glenn Bell proud, because there was a real guy, Glenn Bell, that we were celebrating his, you know, his fiftieth anniversary. And so they did a bunch of concept testing. And one of the one of the ideas they came up with was a taco made of Doritos, which sounds easy in concept terms, but not easy to make. And so we actually came down to Dallas where I now live, and Al Carey, who was running Frito Lay at the time, was also on the Home Depot board. They had gone out to Home Depot.

Greg Creed (19:39): Look at these two. They had bought a spray gun machine. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (19:43): They put they put the

Unknown Speaker (19:44): seasoning spray gun.

Greg Creed (19:45): They yeah. They put the seasoning seasoning? In like the nacho cheese seasoning in a from Doritos and a spray gun. They fried our taco. They sprayed them.

Greg Creed (19:54): It was a really shitty ex, you know execution of it. But the idea of making a taco out of Doritos was a huge idea. It took us three years to go from concept to launch and we launched it on the exactly on the fiftieth anniversary of Glen Bell opening his first Taco Bell in Downey, California. And as you said, we did launched it in in March. We did about 450,000,000 units at a dollar 39.

Greg Creed (20:19): So it's like $600,000,000. And and then the following year, we did Cool Ranch Doritos, and then the year after that, we did, a fiery you know, like a fiery Doritos. And So so it was huge.

Speaker 0 (20:31): That's it's it's really it's unbelievable that you rolled this thing out. It's the biggest launch ever. Now what's this operation Alaska? Tell me about this operation Alaska.

Greg Creed (20:41): Oh, yeah. Okay. So we had two two teenagers in Alaska, in Bethel, Alaska. Bethel has a population of 5,000 people. So these kids on social media tell everybody in the town that Taco Bell's bringing a Taco Bell to Bethel.

Unknown Speaker (20:57): Well, that's not gonna happen. It's like in the middle of I mean, that's near the

Unknown Speaker (20:59): Bay Of The Sea.

Greg Creed (21:00): You can probably see Russia on it. You know?

Unknown Speaker (21:02): Anyway Right. Right.

Greg Creed (21:03): So so we base but it was one of those great things where these kids were like, they're kids. They love Taco Bell. They wanted us to bring a Taco Bell. So we thought, well, you know what we should do? We should actually airlift in the taco truck to Bethel and give everybody in in Bethel, Alaska a free Doritos Locos taco.

Greg Creed (21:22): And so that's what we did. We basically took the

Unknown Speaker (21:25): Did you fly it in?

Unknown Speaker (21:26): Yeah. We had to fly we had to put the

Unknown Speaker (21:28): taco pilot. Did you fly?

Unknown Speaker (21:29): Oh god. No. I did not know. I did not fly that plane.

Speaker 0 (21:32): Oh, see. I thought you were flying the plane and you were dropping tacos out of the plane.

Unknown Speaker (21:36): But you

Greg Creed (21:36): know what's interesting? The taco truck was so heavy. The poor little Hercules helicopter. The the the rotors were like bending and there was so much weight this thing's trying to lift. Anyway, there was two good two good things happened.

Greg Creed (21:47): We obviously got a huge amount of PR, but we actually got to connect with the people in Bethel, Alaska like the principal of the school and stuff. And we found out that a lot of kids up there, they don't really sort of think of a life beyond Bethel, Alaska or maybe even Alaska. And so I think one of the greatest things we had is we took the juniors and the seniors in the high school, we flew them down to Orange County, and we we took them to an Angels baseball game. We took them to the beach. We took them to Disneyland.

Greg Creed (22:14): We took them to UC Irvine. And we basically wanted to show them that there's a big life out there, which they rightly don't understand. They've never been out there. So we flew like 30 kids and a bunch of teachers down to Irvine. And I think it was one of the proudest things we did as a brand, which was to bring these kids and give them a chance to see what life could be.

Greg Creed (22:31): And I found out later on from the principal that one of the kids became a doctor and went back to the community and is now looking after, you know, native Alaskans in the community of Bethel. I I I and you know what?

Unknown Speaker (22:43): Got Kendrick. We got Kendrick. It all starts with a taco.

Greg Creed (22:45): It all starts with a taco. James Harden and Kendrick Lamar came with me, would you believe? We went back a second time. Those guys for no money came back because they loved the story of what we were trying to do for the high school. And so James Harden and Kendrick Lamar came back with me the second time, and we went and spoke to all the kids at the school.

Greg Creed (23:04): And I give those guys a lot of credit because they could charge an awful lot of money to do this. And going to Bethel, Alaska's, you know, not close. So just so much good stuff came out of it, mate. Seriously.

Speaker 0 (23:13): So was this was this like the turning point where from your perspective, for your tenure, turning Taco Bell from this kind of fast food kind of the the, you know, restaurant into now you start thinking, you know what? We're part of American culture. We're part of the lifestyle. We're not just a fast food restaurant. We're actually we drive what people think what they eat, the you know, right?

Speaker 0 (23:42): Like it started that's really the turning point.

Greg Creed (23:44): Yeah. I I think it is. I mean, we've done some other things. I mean, I know Jimmy's got a a the Mountain Dew Bahar Blast. We we created our own proprietary beverage back in 2004.

Greg Creed (23:54): Did you know last year, Mountain Dew Baja blasted a billion dollars in sales at Taco Bell?

Unknown Speaker (23:58): I gotta tell

Unknown Speaker (23:59): One drink.

Unknown Speaker (24:00): I I did not know. It's it's unbelievable.

Greg Creed (24:02): It's unbelievable. And so Yeah.

Jimmy Frischling (24:04): And then notice our Baja blast kinda matches Greg's shirt?

Unknown Speaker (24:07): It does. Yeah. He's good on board.

Unknown Speaker (24:08): I think that was intentional.

Greg Creed (24:09): Yeah. You wanna hear the Baja Blast hear the Baja Blast story?

Unknown Speaker (24:12): Yes, please.

Greg Creed (24:13): Because no one believes it. No. I'll believe it. So we we the insight was kids were getting we well, we you know how everyone measures drinks per 100 transactions or whatever in restaurant industry. Right?

Greg Creed (24:23): So we noticed the drinks were going down amongst teenagers and young adults. So a guy called Tom Wagner, ranked consumer insights for me. He comes in one day and he goes, they're getting a free drink at home. They think they're getting a free drink at home because mom and dad have gone out and bought the 12 pack or the 20 pack. So these kids are not stupid.

Unknown Speaker (24:38): Like, go buy the Taco Bell, but I can get a Pepsi or, you know, something at home, right? Mountain Dew. Sure. So we went to PepsiCo and we said, we need we need you to make a proprietary beverage in there. And so we don't do that thing.

Greg Creed (24:48): I said, yeah, I know you don't, but you need to do it. And, you know, they were like, yeah, not sure. And we're like, yeah, yeah, you're gonna do it. Anyway, give them credit. But here's how we came up with a name.

Greg Creed (24:58): Every year, we used to go to the Esperanza Hotel in Cabo, which is where? The tip of the Baja Peninsula.

Unknown Speaker (25:05): Yeah. Baja Peninsula.

Greg Creed (25:06): Having a blast and the color the color of the drink is the turquoise color when the waves crash onto the beach at the Esperanza Hotel, the water looks turquoise. And I said, that's the color I want to drink. To which they replied, no one makes a turquoise drink. I said, yeah. Well, no one's gonna make me a proprietary beverage either.

Greg Creed (25:26): So so that's why it's turquoise, and now it's a billion dollar brand. A billion dollars.

Speaker 0 (25:32): That's unbelievable. Can I ask you a question?

Unknown Speaker (25:34): Because you brought up Pepsi, and

Unknown Speaker (25:35): I think that's something interesting. Like Yep. Tell me the Pepsi story because they they used to own Yes. They did. All your brands, and then they I but, mean, we didn't get to you, but that's really you brought it up a

Unknown Speaker (25:46): bit. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (25:47): Like, how did that go on? And, like, do you get to go talk to them and then they're like, leave me alone?

Unknown Speaker (25:51): Like No.

Unknown Speaker (25:52): What's the relationship?

Greg Creed (25:53): So I, so when I joined in 1994, they owned the restaurants. In 1997, they spun us off, which eventually became Yum! Brands. But obviously, we had a long term Pepsi contract. I gotta tell you, I mean, I got to meet Indra Nooy when she was running PepsiCo, Al Carey, Tom Greco.

Greg Creed (26:10): These were the most senior people there. And you're right. We I think what we did is I think we demonstrated to the whole to the whole industry what a true partnership is about. But we did it in little steps. You know, we put Fritos in burritos.

Greg Creed (26:21): We we didn't just start off with Doritos Locos Taco. You know, we started doing little things. And I think what you've got to do in in these partnerships, you've to earn people's respect. Like, you're if gonna give me Mountain Dew or Doritos, I you want me to treat that brand with incredible respect and do the right thing. Sure.

Greg Creed (26:35): And so we wouldn't have they would never have let us do Doritos like Costacas if we hadn't done Mountain Dew Bahar Blast. And so all this is predicated on that. But it was a big win for both of us. I mean, let's be honest. We sell more Mountain Dew than anybody.

Greg Creed (26:48): I think I think only Walmart sells more Mountain Dew in this country than Taco Bell. Now look how big Walmart is compared to Taco Bell, and we sell the second most amount of Mountain Dew in the whole country.

Jimmy Frischling (26:58): Let me ask you. Greg, I wanna talk about something here. Yeah. Particularly you as a leader. I wanna talk about three things Yeah.

Jimmy Frischling (27:04): That really had nothing to do with what I would say as as the finance person here, at least compared to Shats, not so yourself. Has nothing to do with quarterly earnings.

Unknown Speaker (27:14): Thank you. Thank you for that compliment to

Jimmy Frischling (27:16): me. Has nothing do with earnings, but has everything to do with, like, what Taco Bell became under your leadership first. And I teased it at the top of the show, I talked about no ranch dressing. Yep. Okay.

Jimmy Frischling (27:29): Taco Bell sells fries. Yep. And I I believe you're the only QSR in America that doesn't hand ketchup out.

Unknown Speaker (27:35): Mate, we're the only brand in the world. The only brand in the world that doesn't give you ketchup with fries.

Jimmy Frischling (27:40): Doesn't give you ketchup with fries. Okay. And then there was a moment where you were asked, you were pushed, you could have added ranch. Everyone wanted ranch. So so the story goes

Unknown Speaker (27:50): Yeah.

Jimmy Frischling (27:50): You could have sold it, and you said no. Ranch is not Taco Bell.

Unknown Speaker (27:53): Right.

Jimmy Frischling (27:54): Point two. You carry big purple sauce packs packets

Unknown Speaker (27:59): Yeah.

Jimmy Frischling (27:59): Around you, and you write personal notes on them to recognize someone on your team.

Unknown Speaker (28:04): Yeah.

Jimmy Frischling (28:05): That that's worth nothing in dollars, but it it

Unknown Speaker (28:08): it's a there it is. The business card is

Unknown Speaker (28:10): The day, mate.

Greg Creed (28:11): The business card is even a die cut sauce packet.

Unknown Speaker (28:14): There you go. That and there you have it. And then three Yeah. And this one I particularly love.

Unknown Speaker (28:19): Yeah.

Jimmy Frischling (28:19): You also walk around with Taco Bell gift cards. In your wallet, you give them to friends, strangers, whoever. K? Not because it's not a marketing tactic. No.

Jimmy Frischling (28:27): It is because you believe in what you've built. Yep. So these three things tell me, you know, what they say is you recognize people. You your your you this brand and your personality, fit together.

Unknown Speaker (28:40): Yep.

Unknown Speaker (28:40): Tell me about your leadership philosophy. Okay? Where did that come from, and and and and how do you teach it?

Greg Creed (28:45): I guess that's a really good question. I've always believed in you've got to be distinctive, right? I mean, brands, I mean, I wrote this book when I retired with Ken Mansh called Relevant, Easy and Distinctive. But I think one of the most important things is a brand has to be distinctive. And I think a lot of brands all look and feel the same.

Greg Creed (29:05): And you know, they say the same things, they look the same way and all that sort of stuff. So I've always been driven to do things differently. So even like when I first started working or even in the nineties and stuff, you know, you had to wear suits and ties and all sort of crap to work. And even though I would do that because I had to, I always wore crazy socks. I was like the crazy sock guy because I was like, okay, you know, I'm gonna sort of stick it to the man my way and sticking it to the man was wearing my crazy socks.

Unknown Speaker (29:31): I the question I got asked when I ran YUM was, now you're the man who do you stick it to? Which I thought was an interesting question. But anyway

Unknown Speaker (29:37): It's a question.

Greg Creed (29:37): It is a good question. So I've always just believed and I'm essentially, later on in my life, got asked what my legacy was gonna be. And it's a question I wish I got asked earlier in my career. And my legacy was proving good guys can come first. And because I think there's a belief if you're not in business that to be successful in business, you've got to either toe the corporate line or you've got to do something evil or you got to do something bad in order to be successful.

Greg Creed (30:02): And I wanted to demonstrate you don't have to toe the line. I am not the guy anyone knows who knows me thinks I do not toe the line. Now there's the line and there's another line, right? So there's two lines.

Unknown Speaker (30:14): Two lines you're toeing.

Greg Creed (30:16): And you know, the second one is very clear. But I've always and I'm just a big believer in your job as the leader is to get the best out of the team. And when I was in school, I played rugby and cricket and soccer. I was usually the captain of the team. But I wasn't the best player on the team.

Greg Creed (30:33): And I think too often what people think is, well, let's make the best individual contributor the captain. And that's not right because maybe they're a great individual contributor. It doesn't mean they can get the best out of the team. And I was definitely not the best rugby player, cricketer, or soccer player. I I was good, but I wasn't the best.

Unknown Speaker (30:50): I find it hard to believe.

Unknown Speaker (30:51): I know. It's true. Let me let me

Speaker 0 (30:53): Jimmy has a very similar story. He was not the best baseball player.

Unknown Speaker (30:56): Yeah. And Right, Jimmy?

Unknown Speaker (30:58): I was a small team. I was the best baseball player. But but anyway

Greg Creed (31:00): But anyway, so I I I'm a big believer in your job is to get the best out of the team. That that's your job as a

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Greg Creed (32:47): Peter. And so for me, it's always it's sort of like one of my I had a friend of mine, Jeff Jenkins, who sent me this quote this morning, would you believe, which was sort of out of the of the blue and not even not even something that I was looking for. I I collect wisdoms. And Jeff said to me, there is no traffic if you make your own lane. And I I think that's one of the like the cleverest things I've heard which is I think most people are in everyone else's lane.

Greg Creed (33:17): And what I've tried to do is be is make my own lane. And not just for me, but for the Love your own. But for the brands that I've I've I've had the privilege to run. Right? And so if you think about it, at Taco Bell, we don't sell hamburgers, we could.

Greg Creed (33:31): We don't sell chicken sandwiches, we could. We don't sell salads, we could. We don't sell kids meals, we could. We don't put ketchup with the fries, we could. And so the story on on ranch dressing is that the the essence that we used to create all our food around was this thing called Mexican Mexican inspired.

Greg Creed (33:49): Everything had to be Mexican inspired. And so one one day, a summer intern, NBA, UCLA, USC, I'm not sure, She gives this whole presentation for 15 charts on every how everyone's eating more ranch dressing, and we need to add ranch dressing. And the funny thing is, as an Australian, I didn't grow up with ranch dressing, so I personally hate it. So I go, no. We're not doing it.

Greg Creed (34:08): Everyone laughs thinking Greg's just been funny. He's not gonna do it. I go, no. It's not Mexican inspired.

Unknown Speaker (34:13): Doesn't sound very Mexican.

Greg Creed (34:15): It does not. And so now give them credit, what they came up with was avocado ranch dressing. But here's the point sounds here's the point I wanna make. Better. I see too many brands who jump on a fad or a trend or whatever, and they don't execute it through their brand essence or through their brand lens.

Unknown Speaker (34:30): They just

Unknown Speaker (34:30): Makes a lot sense.

Unknown Speaker (34:31): So the next thing with some Korean barbecue or whatever like, yo, Korean barbecue is Whatever

Unknown Speaker (34:35): is hot. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (34:35): Whatever is hot. And the point

Speaker 0 (34:37): Charcuterie plates at Taco Bell.

Greg Creed (34:38): Exactly. So you're missing the plot. So even that so when people when they launched fries, what did we do? Well, first of all, were nacho fries, not regular fries. Like nacho coating.

Greg Creed (34:49): And the second thing is we didn't catch it because everyone else has catch it. In fact, we made an ad with a ketchup packet crying because we wouldn't let it into a Taco Bell restaurant. Okay? And so I think the great thing about Taco Bell is that it has created its own lane. It it it knows its lane incredibly well.

Greg Creed (35:07): It knows what to do in this lane. It's not trying to be in anyone else's lane. We used to call it we used to say Taco Bell was a category of one. It's in its own category. And I'm really

Unknown Speaker (35:16): It's the place to be, by the way.

Greg Creed (35:17): Oh, it's the it's the only place to be. I one of my big things is as a marketer is I want you to love me or hate me just don't be indifferent. Because if you think about it, even in hate, there is passion. If you hate something like I hate brussels sprouts. I mean, I can go on for ten minutes about why I hate brussels sprouts.

Unknown Speaker (35:36): Why do you hate brussels sprouts? Because they taste like shit. And my mom made me eat

Unknown Speaker (35:40): When you were younger?

Greg Creed (35:41): Made you eat them. And but the point is what you don't want to do is be beige. And too many brands are beige. They don't they don't excite anybody. They don't offend anybody.

Unknown Speaker (35:52): So even going back to

Unknown Speaker (35:53): Well, you said they jump on the band. Whatever's hot at the moment. Right. And they're like, let me just jump on that, but they don't stay true to their Yeah.

Greg Creed (36:01): And so a brand look, I'm sure there were people when we said, thank you for suing us, that thought we were idiots. And I'm sure that people loved it and there were people who hate it. I don't mind if you love and hate me. Just don't be indifferent. I've seen too many brands that have gone for years being in the, well, no one loves me, but no one hates me.

Greg Creed (36:19): It's okay. They're okay. Well, you don't wanna be the the they're okay brand. And so the fact that not everyone loves Taco Bell and everyone some people make fun of Taco Bell and, you know, all the stories about Taco Bell. They at least talk about Taco Bell and they have passion about it.

Greg Creed (36:33): And it's this idea of what I call, are you a mirror brand or are you a magnet brand? And if you think about magnets, They attract. Mirrors just reflect back what everyone else is seeing. I think one of the great things about Taco Bell is we made it a magnet brand. We we let the world know what the brand stands for.

Greg Creed (36:52): If those things line up with what you want, not just the food but the attitude and all that stuff, then come be part of the Taco Bell family. And if they don't, that's fine. Go somewhere else. But everyone sells hamburgers and chicken sandwiches and salads and kids meals, and we're like, no. We don't do that stuff.

Unknown Speaker (37:07): And we're consciously I not doing

Jimmy Frischling (37:09): think people that are listeners, this last section and specifically the last couple of minutes that Greg shared, I think I got like five or six new themes for the upcoming themes of the hospitality headline. Like, he's dropping knowledge here, and I was taking copious notes. Greg, I want to ask you, I want to talk about something that's very near and dear to the hospitality hangout and our hearts given at branded's doing. We are yelling from rooftops that there is a real career in food service and hospitality and that it's is so chronically misunderstood and underestimated. You, I understand, used to go to your restaurant GMs at Taco Bell.

Unknown Speaker (37:52): Yep.

Jimmy Frischling (37:53): And you kind of reframe something that I that I think is so important. You'd you'd say to these GMs, these general managers, you're running a $2,000,000 business. Yep. You're responsible for 40 humans.

Unknown Speaker (38:05): Yep.

Unknown Speaker (38:06): How many friends your age have that level of responsibility knowing the answer was that most don't? Yep. So why do we as an industry sorry, not as an industry. Yeah. We keep treating too often restaurant leadership like it's a stepping stone

Unknown Speaker (38:19): Right.

Jimmy Frischling (38:20): Instead of a destination. And what did you do to change that culture inside Yum?

Greg Creed (38:25): Yeah. Well, I think it's two things, Jimmy. I think for some, it's a stepping stone, for some, it's a career. Right? Right.

Greg Creed (38:30): That's the beauty of it, which is some jobs are only stepping stones, and some are only careers. I mean, Mike Graham started as an assistant manager at Taco Bell and ended up being the president of Taco Bell and now he's the chief operating officer of Starbucks. Right? So it it can be a stepping stone. But to your point, it used to really irk me that people look down upon people in the hospitality business.

Greg Creed (38:49): It's almost like, oh, like, you know, like through their toffee nose they would look down at people. So you're right. I would spend a lot of time saying in your circle of friends how many as you said have a $2,000,000 responsibility, 40 people that you have to hire and train and develop. And then also, you know, you're probably serving four and a half thousand people a week and making their life better. And I think so I personally took it upon myself.

Greg Creed (39:13): I'm a huge believer that culture fuels results. And I think at the end of the day, what happens in life is if you go to business school, they teach you this thing called strategy, structure, culture. You know, you write the strategy, you work out the structure, and then you do culture. I'm of the belief they have the right three ingredients. They're just in the wrong order.

Greg Creed (39:31): Culture, strategy, structure. And so most of my time as the CEO was spent about driving culture. Because I truly believed if we had the best culture and we had RGMs that believed in themselves, RGMs that believed they were doing the right job, people in the marketing and the food innovation team that knew they were making things that Mexicans buy, we would perform better. And I'm convinced and I'll go to my grave believing that culture fuels results. And so we did we did two things.

Greg Creed (39:56): I don't know everyone knows this. At Yum! We're I think we're the only brand where the executives, everyone restaurant manager and above, they get rated on their performance and they get a culture score. I and the lawyers hated it. You can imagine.

Greg Creed (40:11): Right? Because they Oh, the KPI thing is, you know, you had five things to do. You either did them or didn't do. I can mathematically check it. Culture is not like that.

Greg Creed (40:20): But we gave you the score which was either learning if you were new, lacking, living, or leading. And we you got a score every year. And I made the point that if you wanna be a successful leader at Taco Bell and then Yum, you had to be leading the culture and you had to deliver on your KPIs. Right? And I taught around the world, I think 20 times a class called leading culture fuels results.

Greg Creed (40:43): And then the follow-up class was inspiring others fuels results. And then we created a three day course for all our RGMs, for all now 7,000 of them, that was all about teaching them to be better leaders. Not to make tacos better or not to make burritos better, but to be able to go back into their communities and be a better church leader, a better coach of the kids soccer team, or whatever it happened to be. And it's those sort of things now in my retirement. I'm probably maybe just as proud or even more proud of than Doritos Locos Tacos and Mountain Dew Baja Blast because those are the things that have stayed on and will stay on and I think have made a difference in many people's lives.

Jimmy Frischling (41:21): Alright. I wanna thank you for everything. You know, to our listeners, this is a this is a gentleman. This is a kid from Brisbane who watched planes taking off for hours outside a chain link fence who almost became an army officer Yep. Sold the turns into Unilever and somehow ended up reinventing the crunchy taco

Unknown Speaker (41:38): Yeah.

Jimmy Frischling (41:39): Running a mere 48,000 restaurant units in a 140 countries and sits on the board of Delta Airlines. If I had an RED episode relevant, absolutely easy to listen to, and the whole time, he's a distinctive gentleman. There is no one else like you, mister Creed, and we so appreciate you being on our podcast and doing this. You know, there there's a comment that nice guys finish last, and I know that's one of your Yep. Pet peeves.

Unknown Speaker (42:03): It is. One of your missions is to prove that good guys can come first. And I have to tell you, for anyone listening to the show, you know that mister Creed is a good guy, and he really are. So, Greg, thank you for that. If anyone wishes to get in touch with Greg, you can email the podcast team at podcast@brandedstrategic.com.

Jimmy Frischling (42:20): We'd be happy to make the introduction. And if you get to see mister Creed, you you don't know. You might get a gift card, and I recommend you accept it. Shazzy, please close this out.

Unknown Speaker (42:29): I gotta tell you, Jimmy, I'm gonna go out on a limb here. I'm gonna tell you. I think how many 387 episodes?

Unknown Speaker (42:34): I think we're even higher than that.

Unknown Speaker (42:36): 389. Okay. That's Four hundred four hundred episodes.

Unknown Speaker (42:39): Taking the over, but I got it. Finished it, thought

Unknown Speaker (42:41): it was you're gonna say. This is the classiest guest We have ever had nice guys come first because the accent beyond the accent, the smartest, most articulate, the best guess we ever had. Without a doubt. I gotta tell you. This is one for this is one for the books.

Unknown Speaker (42:59): I gotta you.

Unknown Speaker (42:59): Check us out

Unknown Speaker (43:00): at you want to see how good looking this guy is, by the way, and see how ugly Jimmy and I are. I gotta tell you right now. Check us out on YouTube at hospitality.

Unknown Speaker (43:07): Hang out,

Unknown Speaker (43:07): and you can make

Unknown Speaker (43:08): the comparison yourself. And if you haven't signed up for our newsletter, hospitalityheadline.com comes out every Saturday morning. Cheers, everybody. And thank you, Mr. Greg Creeks.

Unknown Speaker (43:18): Hey, guys. My love. Cheers.