GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME CHALUPAS
Taco Bell Pulls the Chain on the Liberty Bell
Public-private partnerships are a long-standing way for corporations to reach consumers while the public coffers find economic relief. Throughout the United States, for example, you’ll see signs along different highways noting that a particular company or organization has “adopted” that stretch of road. The benefactor pays for the maintenance of that section (e.g., garbage cleanup) and, in exchange, gets a small sponsorship message that passing drivers will see. While some object to this as part of a larger over-commercialization issue, others see it as an acceptable way to defray the costs of public thoroughfares and attractions.
But in the mid-1990s, however, one company went too far. That company was Taco Bell, and via a full-page ad in seven papers across the country, they announced their purchase of an American landmark: the Liberty Bell.
The Liberty Bell is an artifact from the Revolutionary War period that is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Legend has it that the bell rang to mark the Second Continental Congress’s vote to declare independence from Great Britain on July 2, 1776. By the mid-1850s, the Liberty Bell had become a symbol of freedom in the United States.
Taco Bell wanted the Liberty Bell to also be a symbol of financial freedom, apparently, because, on April 1, 1996, the company blanketed the nation with hundreds of thousands of dollars in newspaper ads announcing their new acquisition. In exchange for a sizable (undisclosed) donation intended to offset America’s national debt, Taco Bell had acquired the Liberty Bell. The renamed “Taco Liberty Bell” was to remain in Philadelphia most of the time, but as part of the deal, Taco Bell would relocate it for a few weeks each year to its headquarters in Irvine, California. The company hoped that their efforts would lead to other corporations following in kind—to “do their part,” as the ad said, in reducing the national debt.
Many citizens were outraged. Thousands called either the National Park Service or Taco Bell (or both) to voice their negative responses. The National Park Service itself was quite confused about what was going on; a Philadelphia-based spokesperson for the organization told The Philadelphia Inquirer that she was caught by surprise herself, only finding out about the decision when she saw the ad in her local newspaper.
Taco Bell’s corporate phones were receiving thousands of calls, as were newspaper offices across the country, as Americans tried to figure out how such a thing could happen. However, some people didn’t bother to call or complain—they had noticed something significant at the top of the page: the date. It was April 1—April Fools’ Day! Taco Bell’s ad was a prank; the Liberty Bell was never for sale, and the fast-food chain revealed as much later on that day.
Not everyone was pleased by the joke, but most were good spirited about it. Philadelphia’s mayor at the time even joked back at the company, noting that the city was investing $10 million to $15 million in a new pavilion and visitor center for the Taco Liberty Bell. He invited Taco Bell to pick up the tab (the company passed on this request, but to its credit, had already agreed to donate $50,000 to the bell’s maintenance). The White House also got in on the joke; its spokesperson, Mike McCurry, joshed that the nation “will be doing a series of these things. Ford Motor Company is planning an effort to refurbish the Lincoln Memorial. It’ll be the Lincoln Mercury Memorial.”