For seven years I wrote a blog reviewing advertising. I repeatedly railed against TV campaigns that were so high-concept that they failed to register the brand. You know the kind I’m talking about? The brilliantly funny ad that accidentally ends up promoting the competitor more than the brand it's designed to sell? Here's one:
Bruce Horowitz wrote about the Chipotle video for USA Today, and when he asked me about it I told him that I thought it would help the brand. Even though the brand was barely mentioned. A professor from Loyola Marymount disagreed with me, over that same issue I was harping on for years – brand recognition. And I offered this obscure defense of The Scarecrow:
Chipotle's marketing strategy makes sense because the ecosystem of advertising has fundamentally changed. Chipotle is relying on social messengers to connect the message to the brand.
So what was I thinking?
Narrative and Viral Video
How can a video without strong brand recognition possibly be effective? Viral video is different from tv advertising, and it’s bending the rules for traditional advertising, too. The Scarecrow is not a piece of television advertising – even if they show it on TV as they did for its predecessor, “Back to The Start” which aired during the 2012 Grammy Awards.
“The Scarecrow” is not advertising. It is a narrative. The critics of the video – who charge that it is unfair and distorts the reality of conventional farming in the U.S. – miss the point. Chipotle is not trying to be fair – the brand is trying to provoke an emotional response, both from the people who agree and disagree with them. Chipotle realizes that the stronger the outcry is from people who detest the story they’re telling, the closer those who agree with them will align to the brand.
Narrative works differently in the online space. Narrative is intended to begin a conversation. Brands like Old Spice started a direct conversation between the brand and the audience (or their girlfriends):
That’s the fantasy that most brands have. But the reality of viral videos is more often like the experience of the Chevy Volt team. They created an event for an auto show, probably aimed at children. They may or may not have created a video of this event and killed it later (accounts vary). But as Mark Phelan sagely observed for the Detroit Free Press,
If you believe there's no such thing as bad publicity, you haven't seen the "Chevy Volt Dance" video from the recent Los Angeles Auto Show.
Instead of touting your brand, a better viral video strategy is to use narrative to transmit brand values. This means relying on social sharing (people embedding your video in their blog, sharing on Facebook, tweeting it) to connect the message to the brand. It’s a high-wire act for marketers who are used to controlling the brand message, but the authenticity of the message is much stronger than with paid advertising. It ensures that nearly every view of the video is driven by a recommendation, which dramatically increases engagement. Chipotle’s first video “Back to The Start” has been viewed about 7.5 million times, which is much smaller than the 40 million people who may have seen the commercial on the Grammy broadcast in 2012. But the 7.5 million views may ultimately have done more for the brand because of the social context that surrounded them.
Effective Cause Marketing
The second thing to consider about the Chipotle campaign is that it’s cause marketing. Cause marketing is controversial because it is so often ineffective: or more precisely it tends to benefit the cause more than the associated brand.
Part of the problem is authentic connection. When a cause is the pet project of a CEO but has no integral connection to the brand, it rarely builds the brand. Only when a cause is so embedded in the essence of a company that a consumer would describe it as part of the brand can it be successful. Patagonia exemplifies this kind of single minded cause focus.
Cause marketing is still marketing, so part of the challenge is that the brand’s link to the cause has to be authentic, unique and consistent to be ownable. This can’t work if the cause is defined too broadly. Here too, Chipotle has a distinct positioning and a unique take on food service with their “Food With Integrity” mission. Listen to how they define it:
Chipotle is seeking better food from using ingredients that are not only fresh, but that--where possible--are sustainably grown and naturally raised with respect for the animals, the land, and the farmers who produce the food.
The key phrase is “where possible.” This separates Chipotle from much of the sustainability and slow foods movement which can be absolutist and uncompromising. Chipotle is more interested in influencing mainstream food production methods and eating habits than remaining ideologically pure. The brand is not universally admired among activists, for this reason. But it gives Chipotle a distinct and memorable market position and the ability to address a wider audience of fast-food eaters.
Although Chipotle is a public company, it still behaves much like a founder-run organization. The viral video campaign, along with the new mobile apps tracks a very different course from its fast food competitors. But along the way, Chipotle has build a very distinctive and memorable brand, whether you love it or hate it.
