A Delicious Text
Deconstructed tacos and gourmet nachos are fun, but sometimes you just want a good, old-fashioned burrito. To celebrate National Burrito Day, Chipotle brought it back to basics with the comfort-food equivalent of a marketing campaign.
While brands love elaborate and bold stunts, it’s good to remember that often less is more. The fast-casual restaurant took a straightforward approach to the food holiday this year, opting for a laid-back Twitter campaign instead of its typical flashy tactics — and fans loved it.
On April 6, the @ChipotleTweets account posted a series of codes throughout the day that followers could text to a number for a chance to win a free burrito. The activation was a resounding success, and each round of text codes was claimed in under a minute. In total, more than 1 million SMS messages were sent, and Chipotle received over 150,000 requests from hungry customers asking for a free burrito on social media.
The simple social media giveaway left Chipotle with much more to celebrate than just burritos, as the promotion led to its second-largest digital sales day of all time and the highest one-day volume of interactions on social media.
In marketing, it’s easy to get distracted by the latest shiny object. But tried-and-true conventional methods like text-to-win contests can still be super effective and win the hearts of loyal customers.
TL;DR: The success of Chipotle’s text-to-win Twitter campaign is a great reminder to never discount the power of going back to basics.
