When we discovered that the phrase “Taco Tuesday” was trademarked, as lovers of all things tacos, we knew something had to be done. So we filed a legal petition to free the Taco Tuesday trademark for everyone to be able to use. We had one problem: this wasn’t your typical marketing campaign. This included an actual legal filing to the US Patent and Trademark Office. That’s not the easiest thing to explain to people—especially on the internet, where attention spans are already low. To get the word out, we partnered with influencers, scratch that, lawfluencers—TikTokers who are passionate about the law. Our goal in partnering with these lawfluencers was to drive awareness of our action while also helping fans understand the legality behind our idea.
Once we filed the legal petition, we had to get the word out in order for fans to join our cause and sign the petition to show that the people also wanted the trademark to be freed. We couldn’t just use regular influencers to help us; we needed people who could break down the complexities in normal terms to help people understand and want to be a part of our movement.
We worked with a handful of lawyers and people passionate about the law on TikTok who are known for making content about court cases or legal updates. Each of these lawfluencers created a video explaining why Taco Bell was petitioning the US Patent and Trademark Office and what freeing the trademark would mean for all the small businesses who were currently unable to use it.
We supplied all of our lawfluencers with a copy of the court petition so they could share the details with their combined 11 million fans. We gave each of our lawfluencers the freedom to express the details in a way that felt natural to their law content style.
When we set out to free the trademark in all 50 states, the creators each made a video spreading awareness of the cause. Once the trademark was freed in all states except New Jersey, we tapped the same lawfluencers to update their fans on the progress and status of the recent petition win.
When we originally set out to free the Taco Tuesday trademark, we were told by our lawyers that it may take a few years. However, with cooperation from the trademark holders, we were able to free the trademark in just a few months. From the time we first filed to after it was freed in 49 states, the lawfluencer videos received 3.2M views, 255.7K likes, 3.9K comments, 11K shares, and 8.8K saves. Along the way, we were also able to accumulate over 25K signatures on our change.org petition from fans that believed in our cause. Because the Taco Tuesday trademark is now free, anyone is able to use the trademark, including hundreds of thousands of small businesses who were previously barred from doing so.
