• by Larissa Faw , July 8, 2019

QDOBA and agency The Many are pointedly articulating the Mexican fast-casual chain's brand promise by doubling down on the company name in a new campaign. 

"This push puts a stake in the ground, making a defining statement about the brand in a fun way," says an agency representative.

The creative was first teased across social media during a week-long activation inviting fans to submit guesses as to what they think QDOBA stands for, rewarding those who participated by bringing their suggestions to life in the form of social GIF animations. 

The campaign also "hacked" social platforms by creating a QDOBA tool that would usually require sending users to another site but instead resulted in a pause-able GIF that allowed people to stay within QDOBA’s social channels.

Campaign videos hint at what each letter might stand for — such as Queso, Delicious On Basically Anything — before revealing the answer to the entire campaign. (No spoiler here.)

"We wanted a campaign that communicated both literally and figuratively what QDOBA stands for that was 100% ownable," explains Scott Harris, founding partner-executive creative director at The Many. "The idea of acronyms does all of this in a really fun and engaging way.” 

In under a week, the campaign has achieved more than 600,000 organic impressions across QDOBA’s social channels.