Halloween Silver Bullet Cause Marketing

Come into Chipotle after 6pm this Halloween costumed as the scariest junk food you can imagine, hand them $2 and you'll get the silver bullet antidote to over-processed food in the form of a burrito, tacos, salad or rice bowl. In turn, Chipotle will donate the $2 to Jaime Oliver’s Food Revolution, up to $1 million.

Take a picture of your costume in a way that shows Chipotle in the photo and submit it online before November 8 and you could win a grand prize of $2,500. Runners up get a check for $1,000, and third prize winners get a burrito party for 20 people.

The promotion, Brandweek reports, costs Chipotle as much as $3 million. It's an extension of the chain's longstanding promotion of inviting customers to dress up for Halloween as their favorite Chipotle menu item to get the silver bullet burrito completely free.

So why spend $3 million to raise no more than $1 million? Or, why doesn't Chipotle just write a $3 million check to Oliver's foundation?

While the burrito or tacos or salad or rice bowl is just $2 when you dress up as scary food, the drinks, the chips and the guacamole are not. And unless your dining companions also come dressed up as fried Twinkies or funnel cakes (um, funnel cakes!) their meal is extra.

It also helps cement Chipotle's positioning as a wholesome alternative to burgers and fries, or, for that matter, what passes for burritos at the national taco chains.

The promotion is also almost inherently viral. The addition of the sweepstakes is a nice way to capture pictures and use them promotionally. But I wonder why Chipotle didn't enable the promotion to really go viral by requiring people to post the photos on their Facebook page or Twitter account. That would spread the promotion much more broadly.

Finally, I can't help but wonder if Chipotle would honor the $2 price if you came in dressed as a cup of Coke ;).

Comments

Batting Your Eyelashes at Prescription Drug Cause Marketing

I’m a little chary about making sweeping pronouncements, but I believe I've just seen the first cause marketing promotion in the U.S. involving a prescription drug. The drug is from Allergan and it’s called Latisse , “the first and only FDA-approved prescription treatment for inadequate or not enough eyelashes.” The medical name for this condition is hypotrichosis. Latisse is lifestyle drug the way Viagra or Propecia are. That is, no one’s going to die (except, perhaps, of embarrassment) if their erectile dysfunction or male pattern baldness or thin eyelashes go untreated. Which means the positioning for a product like Latisse is a little tricky. Allergan could have gone with the sexy route as with Viagra or Cialis and showed lovely women batting their new longer, thicker, darker eyelashes. But I’ll bet that approach didn’t test well with women. (I’m reminded of a joke about the Cialis ads from a comedian whose name I can’t recall. He said, “Hey if my erection lasts longer than ...

Cause Marketing: The All Packaging Edition

One way to activate a cause marketing campaign when the sponsor sells a physical product is on the packaging. I started my career in cause marketing on the charity side and I can tell you that back in the day we were thrilled to get a logo on pack of a consumer packaged good (CPG) or even just a mention. Since then, there’s been a welcome evolution of what sponsors are willing and able to do with their packaging in order to activate their cause sponsorships. That said, even today some sponsors don’t seem to have gotten the memo that when it comes to explaining your cause campaign, more really is more, even on something as small as a can or bottle. The savviest sponsors realize that their only guaranteed means of reaching actual customers with a cause marketing message is by putting it on packaging. And the reach and frequency of the media on packaging for certain high-volume CPG items is almost certainly greater than radio, print or outdoor advertising, and, in many cases, TV. More to ...

Chili’s and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

I was in Chili’s today and I ordered their “Triple-Dipper,” a three appetizer combo. While I waited for the food, I noticed another kind of combo. Chili’s is doing a full-featured cause-related marketing campaign for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. There was a four-sided laminated table tent outlining the campaign on the table. When the waitress brought the drinks she slapped down Chili’s trademark square paper beverage coasters and on them was a call to action for an element of the campaign called ‘Create-A-Pepper,’ a kind of paper icon campaign. The wait staff was all attired in black shirts co-branded with Chili’s and St. Jude. The Create-A-Pepper paper icon could be found in a stack behind the hostess area. The Peppers are outlines of Chili’s iconic logo meant to be colored. I paid $1 for mine, but they would have taken $5, $10, or more. The crayons, too, were co-branded with the ‘Create-A-Pepper’ and St. Jude’s logos. There’s also creatapepper.com, a microsite, but again wi...

Cause Marketing

Search This Blog