Feb 19, 2008 6:05 AM, PROMO Xtra, By Brian Quinton

Taco Bell is using its condiments to drive customers to a swimsuit Web site.

In a promotional tie-in with the Sports IllustratedSwimsuit Issue, Taco Bell is giving Web visitors a chance to play virtual shutterbug with an actual SI model.

The campaign integrates digital elements, print ads and the chain’s first in-store promotion—on its taco sauce packets.

Visitors to DirectDaniella.com can interact with original video shot with Brazilian model Daniella Sarahyba, using their Web browsers to take snapshots as she poses on a beach in the Grand Cayman Islands. They can “direct’ her poses by selecting various branching options as the video plays, placing Sarahyba on the beach, in a volleyball game or lounging in a hammock, earning compliments from Sarahyba on their camera skills in the process.

Using their mouse to frame shots and keyboard controls to zoom in or out, users can take photos that are saved to a gallery and can be either downloaded to their computers or e-mailed to a friend. A link on the Web site also drives visitors to information about the chain’s new Fiesta Platters menu items.

For the first time in its existence, Taco Bell will support the DirectDaniella tie-in Web site with promotional copy on its Hot Border Sauce condiment packets. These usually carry messages of tongue-in-cheek wisdom and have become an in-store branding tool for the chain. During the campaign, which runs through April 12, some 208 million of those packets will carry messages intended to create buzz and drive customers to the DirectDaniella site. The packets’ changing messages also figure as content on the home Web page.

Taco Bell will also support the Daniella campaign with three consecutive pages of print ads in the Swimsuit Issue, which hits newsstands this week after a cable TV preview last Saturday night on TNT.

“The hotly anticipated Sports illustrated Swimsuit Issue is a great vehicle to reach our core target audience, and we wanted to involve them from a unique, personalized perspective,” Taco Bell Corp. chief marketing officer David Owens said in a statement.

The 2008 SISwimsuit Issue is expected to be read by more than 70 million people globally and will drop in 10 countries outside the U.S., including China, Mexico, Russia, Spain and Taiwan.

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