In 2014, the first moment of future NBA superstar Nikola Jokic’s career was interrupted when the NBA Draft broadcast cut away to a Taco Bell Quesarito commercial. In the 11 years since, fans have continued to resurface the viral broadcast clip and the longstanding ‘beef’ between Jokic and Taco Bell as a keystone of NBA cult lore.
In late 2025, Taco Bell brought the Quesarito back to its menus for a limited time, and we saw an opportunity not just to reference the fan favorite moment, but to create a brand new viral moment out of an old internet drama that had simmered somewhat under the radar for over a decade. Our objective was to activate the intersecting fandom of NBA lore devotees + rabid Taco Bell fanatics to create larger scale cultural buzz for the Quesarito.
Our main challenge was that the Jokic-Quesarito moment had lived online for a decade without any fan involvement. Fans had already claimed ownership of the lore, so we needed to add new value to the story if we wanted to excite them.
So instead of simply referencing the same content they were already posting, we invited them to become part of the lore by adding a new chapter to the story. We created a very public plea of forgiveness to Jokic, begging him to give our newly returned Quesarito menu item a chance.
To engage our fans, we first re-instigated the ‘beef’ with an apology video on paid social media using the viral clip of the Jokic draft moment that would be instantly recognizable to fans. We also used OOH targeted to places Jokic might frequent in Denver, such as the airport and by the basketball stadium, to capture the attention of the local NBA community.
We then invited fans to directly participate in the drama by turning them into walking billboards for Jokic. We hosted a Denver Nuggets game takeover where we gave away over 20,000 shirts featuring our plea of forgiveness.The takeover sparked a viral moment where fans extended the conversation outside the arena as well, creating Reddit threads about the T-shirt takeovers, posting videos on their social pages, and even buying and selling knockoff versions of our shirt.
Rather than resolving the drama, the campaign was designed to keep it alive. Instead of having Jokic respond directly to us, we invited fan speculation by creating a custom shirt for him to wear walking into his game reading “still won’t try it.” As fans and media pressed him for answers, Jokic doubled down on his refusal with his signature nonchalance, fanning the flames of conversation and keeping the community guessing, and maintaining the fervor of the viral moment despite direct brand involvement.
Our Quesarito launch campaign ignited a viral conversation moment within both the NBA and Taco Bell communities. Taco Bell aficionados dialed up online conversations by starting 10+ number of Reddit threads dedicated to guessing what would happen next with Jokic and Taco Bell, which garnered more than 2,400 engagements. Our launch social static and video posts each received over 2M views respectively, with Quesarito fan Brie Larson commenting “It’s a miracle.” Custom, fan-made GIFs of Jokic and the Quesarito flooded our comment sections on Instagram and TikTok. One popular account, @tacobellquesarito1, celebrated the return with a fan edit video that has over 1.2M views. Our Denver Nuggets T-Shirt takeover sparked a mass wave of knockoff merch sales, with over 20 separate vendors creating copies of our shirts to sell online. Over the course of two weeks, Taco Bell saw an increase of 10k+ followers on TikTok and 3k+ on Instagram.
