Chipotle sort of notoriously gave up on ad agencies.
And when they came out with that “Back To The Start” blockbuster, it looked like a brilliant new moment in the restaurant/agency paradigm, and one that did not look so good for Mad Men and Women.
On sunny days, it looks like the great unbundling and total management of the brand by an internal team is working well.
What else have they been doing, though? Well, they have an annual Halloween promotion. Generally the “Boo-Rito” promotion works well enough—certainly the charitable donations to brand-relevant organizations is great. (I am not sure of the punning promotion’s provenance and haven’t tracked down its history: it seems somewhat agency-conceived to me, then self-perpetuating).
But then last Halloween there was this BI-ZARRE video on YouTube which they apparently knew was being done in their name, but has NOTHING to do with the brand as I understand it, and is AWFUL AND NOT FUNNY, and WEIRDLY UNINFORMATIVE, and is in my opinion DAMAGING, and should be immediately stricken from the Tubes of You:
So. Pros, Cons. I love their packaging, which they had some San Francisco design firm do.
But then there was the weird Twitter self-hack, which everyone who loves the morals and mores and vision and aesthetics and methods and design choices and everything about this brand had to sort of overlook.
Then they told Bloomberg they might have to start using beef treated with antibiotics in certain situations to keep up with demand; while it was a pragmatic, nuanced, rational decision, it was easy to have its edges knocked off, and lots of Twitterers were eager to point fingers and go, “Oh, ho, ye high-and-mighty, lookit yerself now.” And when I retweeted a story about the loosening of its antibiotic measures, I got this extremely expert, friendly response:
So, staying their current course. But the question that arise from these swings from “Excellent” to “Okay” to “Oops” is, would they be better off with advice from professional communications people?
Depends, of course, on the relationship and talents of the people they choose. But the right relationship would help Chipotle a whole lot: their efforts on the whole seem disjointed for such a put-together brand. Especially as they try to navigate the post-traditional-advertising world of earned media, they can’t always be lucky (as they were with their choice of partners for the bags and “Back to the Start” video).
Cohesion is what people need to feel they really know a brand.
So far, Chipotle’s momentum and the good will they’ve earned through their stance on healthier, less cruel farming has given them some room. But the recent missteps make it clear there is a limit to the good will: a few more oddball antics and ill-advised anti-branded operations decisions, and they may have to go back to the start.
(Wrapping up with a neat little play on words like that is the sort of thing a traditional ad agency writer tends to do, btw, and I feel kinda squeamish and old-world doing it. Which is why I’ve tagged on this meta-commentary. Which is now a creative decision that’s getting to be kind of old school.) (See, Chipotle? Communications is complicated. Might want to get some trusted advisors, or be sniffing around for some, at least.)