Mastering The Branded Video: A Case Study on Chipotle’s Ad Campaigns

Branded videos muddle the distinction between entertainment and advertisement, often featuring only a brief glimpse of the company name or logo.  The growing popularity of these types of videos points to the nature of advertising today.  Customers no longer want to be sold to; they want to be informed and entertained by an expert source.  They want to trust a company before they purchase its products or services.  According to Mashable, “There is nothing that turns off a customer more than an overtly promotional video.  You aren’t going to see people sharing a video in which a brand talks about how awesome they are – instead, a video with informative, entertaining, or touching content will garner shares.”

In this manner, Chipotle has taken a firm footing within the world of branded videos, eschewing the traditional product pitching and opting instead for videos that highlight the downfall of modern agricultural practices.  In 2010 and 2011, the company released two ad campaigns that helped them bring in $800 million in revenue and over 8 million worldwide viewers.  Compared to the first quarter of 2009, Chipotle’s first quarter net income for 2010 was $37.8 million – a sizeable increase of 49.1%.  Founder Steve Ells attributed this to their “vision to change the way people think about and eat fast food by serving great tasting food made from higher quality and more sustainable raw ingredients,” demonstrated to the community largely through these video advertisements.

This year, 2013, Chipotle came back once more with this “sequel” advertisement, called “The Scarecrow,” which once again proved successful.  This most recent commercial earned nearly 12 million views on YouTube – the equivalent of 49 years worth of viewing.  In addition, the video had tens of thousands of reposts across major social media sites.  Combined with press coverage, this campaign reached over 600 million people across the globe.  Unruly, the leading global social video marketing platform, determined “The Scarecrow” to be the 55^th most shared video of 2013.

What exactly made this video campaign so successful?  On the surface, this video brought together a number of important creative elements, from powerful music to enticing imagery and, of course, strong storytelling.  However, according to Unruly insight director Ian Forrester, “Recent research has found that sharing is not really about creative appeal, but more about emotional appeal.”  Throughout “The Scarecrow,” the audience is moved by the poor treatment of the farm animals and the scarecrow worker’s seemingly dismal situation. Even though consumers are 30% more likely to share advertisements that evoke positive emotional responses than negative ones, Forrester went on to say that “The Scarecrow” is so clever since it holds “an unusual combination of both positive and negative responses.”  Finally – and just as importantly – the Chipotle brand name is not revealed until the last five seconds of the video.

When they are created properly, branded videos help gain the audience’s trust as well as brand awareness without overselling the consumers.  When working with a video production company on your next advertising campaign, try taking a hint from Chipotle.  Ensure you select a company that has just as much expertise in creative services as production techniques.