Chipotle, which is a word most people cannot even pronounce, is a small restaurant chain with 573-unit chain across the United States. It is owned by it's parent company, McDonald's. Although, Chipotle does things a little differently than McDonald's, to gain publicity. In fact, according to an article is BusinessWeek magazine, "Chipotle spends less on advertising annually than McDonald's spends in 48 hours." This doesn't seem to bother Chipotle at all, considering they had a 13.7% increase in sales in 2006.
Chipotle does things a little differently compared to McDonald's who throws advertisements at you all day long through, television, magazines, direct mail and more. Chipotle is much more subtle with tons of WOM. The company started in 1993 and vowed that they would do most of there marketing through word of mouth. For example, they shipped free burritos to the Denver courthouse where Timothy McVeigh trial was going on. I don't know how that blew over but apparently everything they have done has given them good publicity. They also host annual Halloween costumes, where people dress up as burritos. As their prizes they will win free burritos.
All these word of mouth strategies are starting to put Chipotle on the map. They are making great progress. Although a few of their ideas are a little off kilter, like sending food to the McVeigh courthouse, they still manage to keep their reputation in good standing. Many people for the East coast are just starting to hear about Chipotle and it seems to be taking off with a bang.
The only thing I would add to their campaign is to target more teenage males and females. Targeting teenagers I think would add a lot more sales growth. To target this group they need to be original and humorous. Like Kraft did, they made up a website where you can send your parents a fun email to ask them to send you some EasyMac. Something similar to target them would probably be the best thing to do to increase sales within this demographic. Hopefully within the next year or two, Chipotle will be a household name just like their proud parents, McDonald's.
No comments:
Post a Comment