Social Promotion Earns a Lot of Burrito Traffic, But Misses Other Opportunities
Chipotle & NBC failed to integrate owned media & look beyond the Facebook “Like”
It’s not just a TV show. It’s a Facebook-wrapped, social-PR-crafted, burrito-supporting, media-culture-changing funnel-of-confusion.
If you don’t know it by now, I am twisting the deft marketing words of Chipotle Mexican Grill.
Prior to this month, I had never set foot in any of the locations of this burrito-rolling giant. That was destined to change on the morning of Thursday, February 24, when Chipotle’s social marketing campaign for the launch of America’s Next Great Restaurant hit the status updates. Campaigns of this nature pique the interest of anyone involved in marketing for a social world.
Here was the hook: “Like” the Facebook page for NBC’s new reality show America’s Next Great Restaurant, and one of its celebrity judges, Steve Ells, tosses you a BOGO offer for Chipotle. Ah, but there was a catch! Each “Liker” needed to sit through a one minute and thirty second promotion for the TV show before accessing the coupon.
What did they do right?
For starters, they leveraged a coupon offer on Facebook. What’s not to like about a “buy-one get-one free” burrito? Say what you will (and I debated this a bit on Twitter), but the strategy of a tangible reward for clicking “Like” on Facebook is a low-lift slam dunk. If you have a great product, or in this case, can align yourself with a tasty one, individuals will be motivated to act for a chance to experience it.
However, it takes more than a coupon for a burrito to attract the masses.
The Chipotle brand boasts more than 1 million Likers on its Facebook page. Naturally, it makes a great place to promote the offer and begin seeding the word. In addition, Mashable covered the NBC launch story, touching on the network’s previous efforts to use social marketing to spur interest and spark engagement.
The post from Chipotle’s Facebook wall generated about 800 “likes” and 143 comments – not bad. The clear winning move and grand catalyst for this effort, however, was the coverage in Mashable and the article’s social remarketing. There were more than 3,800 tweets from the article page alone, over 1,800 Linkedin shares and a whopping 33,800 article “likes” sent through the Facebook open graph.
All this information-sharing resulted in some large, rapid-fire growth for the new show’s Facebook page. Early on the morning of 24th, the page had fewer than 900 “Likes.” Only hours later, it was over 43,000, and by 5 p.m. it had passed 85,000. As the weekend came and went the page eclipsed both the 100K and 200K thresholds. Through the following week the page pushed above 300K total “Likers.” That’s a hell of a lot of burrito traffic!
What went wrong?
The kickoff certainly was fine. There was a lot of buzz, lots of traffic and lots of tangible, if not basic, results, and all of it was executed with creative use of the current media landscape. Still, the required watching of the video caused some to pause.
Personally, I found that hard to believe, but it was voiced to me, tweeted at me and commented on my Facebook post about the offer. How much it deterred participation is for the page owner to determine. A bigger issue might be the fact that the show is spiraling into a ratings abyss weekly. Lest we forget that it was the show which was being promoted, right? The burrito coupon was just the hook.
This is why, when I went to Chipotle to redeem my coupon, I was stunned by what I saw: nothing – no mention of America’s Next Great Restaurant. I was given two enormous burritos and a receipt. There are thousands of Chipotles across the country, and there was a complete nonuse of even a bag-stuffer or window-cling about the show or the Facebook page for the show? A goose egg on integration.
What’s even worse is the experience on the Facebook page for America’s Next Great Restaurant. There is nothing there beyond the wall posts, which are well-done to be sure, but there is nothing else to optimize the connections they made, not a thing to share on Facebook or discuss at the water cooler in the real world. With the show’s character set, they could have provided endless guest chats, offered behind-the-scenes footage or hosted design-your-own-business contests. The list could go on. Although the page is managing its wall conversations well, I suspect it was left short-changed by a lack of overall strategy on NBC’s part.
In the end this campaign had one defined goal: attract “Likes,” which is too short-sighted. Retailers need to maximize the opportunities that a platform such as Facebook offers in its ability to amplify messages. Likes and comments are part of the mix, but they are not the mix itself.
The easy part is giving away free burritos; the hard part is making people go back for more. In this instance of marketing for a social world, I am likely to go back to Chipotle. The burritos were good, but bring a friend if you have a buy-one get-one coupon — those things are freaking huge!
Remember, the end game for this effort was promotion of a TV show, which I never watched. By the numbers I am not the only one.
