Not Just a Nickname: TACO Trade’s Economic Ripple — When Language Turns Trends into Transactions
In 2024, the U.S. taco industry grew by 9%, surpassing pizza and generating nearly $34 billion in revenue. There was no Taco day or awareness week but something else did start trending.
During the same period, the word “TACO” began trending for an entirely different reason: it became a viral nickname for Donald Trump — one of the many his uncoventional antics spawned. The TACO Trade coined by FT Columnist Robert Armstrong, refers to a market movement in response to the President’s waffling (another food reference) on his tariff policy’s.
What followed was a ripple effect — not just on social media, but in the real economy. The spike in interest, attention, and emotional engagement with the word taco reveals something deeper than meme culture or market psychology.
It’s not just perception. It’s reception.
Before we had the nickname, we had the food. "Taco" is a word already loaded with emotional memory: family gatherings, fast food cravings, childhood comfort, flavor-laced nostalgia. For some, it’s their abuela hand-pressing tortillas and helping her construct them for Sunday gatherings. For others, it’s a moment of release and utopia when the perfect balance of salt, fat, and acid dance along the palette. Either way, it delivers a visceral hit right in the amygdala.
That matters. A lot.
Food-Related Words and Brain Activity
Food-related words activate memory and trigger our drive derive pleasure. Research shows they stimulate emotional and sensory regions in the brain more powerfully than neutral terms. Food terms may even trigger the recollection of past interactions in terms of taste, texture and even situational memory. So when Trump gets called "TACO," it doesn’t just register as satire. It lands as flavor — and the body remembers flavor.
This is the kind of moment where a word’s emotional charge syncs with cultural timing and, in this case, seems to stimulate market direction.
This is the power of language. We don’t just respond to data. We respond to language that feels familiar, charged, emotional. We respond to words that feed us—literally and metaphorically.
Reception over Perception
Brands, leaders, and institutions spend millions trying to shape how they’re perceived. But very few understand how to shape reception — the emotional, embodied response to language. That’s the real lever. And right now, it’s underused.
Whether you are a leader yourself or responsible for a brand or company, if the brand awareness isn’t translating into brand reception you very likely are missing the mark with language.
At HLLI, we work at the intersection of trauma-informed insight, cultural fluency, and strategic language design to help leaders, legacy brands, and institutions shape communication that actually lands — with clarity, credibility, and consequence.
Because emotions move markets. And language delivers the emotion. Book your 1:1 consultation via our Contact Page.
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References:
Forget Trump — is it time to invest in the real taco trade? Here’s how Taco Bell, Chipotle are doing., Market Watch
Asked About ‘TACO’ and Tariffs, Trump Lashes Out at Reporter, NY Times
Tempting food words activate eating simulations, Esther K. Papies, Frontiers in Psychology
