Decades y2k campaign
The brief asked the creative team to build a nostalgia‑fueled campaign that reignited love for Taco Bell by bringing back five iconic menu items, one from each decade of the brand's history, at throwback‑inspired prices.
The brief framed nostalgia as the universal connector: consumers—especially Gen Z, crave the aesthetic, emotional comfort, and cultural artifacts of earlier eras, even eras they never personally experienced. The campaign needed to leverage this powerful pull of the past to create fresh excitement, grow visit frequency, and strengthen positive value perception.
Branding
The Decades Y2K logo draws from early-2000s desktop culture, referencing cascading screensavers, Solitaire card stacks, and layered windows left open on a computer screen. Stacked, offset forms create motion and digital depth, evoking a time when interfaces felt playful, tactile, and imperfect while staying grounded in Taco Bell’s bold brand energy.
Design - Ben Harris
Art Direction - Ben Harris, Andrew Ducote
ESCAPE TO THE
2000s
This campaign is a maximalist mixtape of everything that made the early 2000s iconic: from our memories of frosted tips to TRL countdowns, boy band debates to bootleg LimeWire tracks. And of course, the most delicious Taco Bell bites! A sensory overload of stylized live action, VFX, animation, and design, fused together like a burned CD of our cultural memory. But this wasn’t just nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, it was a reactivation. A reimagining. A reminder that the chaos, the charm, and the no-rules creativity of that era still resonates today.
Art Direction
Ben Harris, Andrew Ducote, Cierra Lux, Robert Fisher
Creative Director
Chris Selter, Rebecca Parker
Production Agency
Scholar
PACKAGING
The Decades Y2K packaging system reframes Taco Bell’s value through nostalgia, using the early 2000s as a single, expansive visual language. Inspired by the collision of pop culture and early digital aesthetics, the system pulls from pixel iconography, UI graphics, and Y2K-era design to create a cohesive, immersive world.
Everyday items like cups and boxes become collectible artifacts, turning nostalgia into moments of recognition and connection while reinforcing Taco Bell’s role as a cultural constant.
Design - Ben Harris, Robert Fisher
Art Direction - Ben Harris, Andrew Ducote
Creative Director - Chris Selter, Rebecca Parker
Store windows
The store windows extend the Decades Y2K system into large-scale, street-level moments, using early-2000s digital cues like pixel textures, UI frames, and exaggerated perspective. Each storefront becomes a bold, nostalgic portal that pulls the product forward and stops traffic.
Design - Ben Harris, Cierra Lux
Art Direction - Ben Harris, Andrew Ducote
Creative Director - Chris Selter, Rebecca Parker
Decades Y2k
Time Capsule
The Decades Y2K Time Capsule reimagined the giveaway as a true early-2000s collectible. Designed as a cohesive bundle rather than standalone swag, the capsule extended the campaign’s digital nostalgia into a physical reward, blending gaming mechanics, fandom, and limited-edition merch. It transformed participation into pursuit, reinforcing value through rarity, progression, and cultural relevance.
Design - Ben Harris, Robert Fisher, Cierra Lux
Art Direction - Ben Harris, Andrew Ducote
Creative Director - Chris Selter, Rebecca Parker
decades Y2k
launch party
The Decades Y2K launch party was a one-night LA event at Zouk Nightclub that turned the campaign into a lived, early-2000s experience. Headlined by Lil Jon and infused with Y2K energy, it doubled as a celebration of the Crunchwrap Supreme’s 20th anniversary — honoring one of Taco Bell’s most iconic products while giving guests first tastes of the revived menu and exclusive merch drops. The night blended music, nostalgia, fashion, and food into a cultural moment that brought the era to life.
Design - Ben Harris, Cierra Lux, Robert Fisher, Viv Zoechling
Art Direction - Ben Harris, Andrew Ducote, Winston Elliot
Creative Director - Chris Selter, Rebecca Parker
