Do you want some love with those tacos? Chipotle’s latest offering is served with a warm and delicious love story. What does long-form storytelling have to do with Mexican food? It’s all about content marketing and crafting a connection with Chipotle’s visitors.
A Love Story
The video highlights the love-hate-love relationship between Evie and Ivan, two entrepreneurs who begin as small-time juice stand operators as children and grow into big businesses powered by food additives. When their machines take over the business and boot out Evie and Ivan, they rediscover their love for each other – and for fresh food with real ingredients.
Does the video mention all the reasons you should dine at Chipotle? No: in fact, Chipotle’s name comes up briefly at the end, and that’s all the explicit branding they do. Instead, the video is a compelling but sweet look at the rise and fall of the characters’ relationship and the creeping menace of additives and machines.
Why Chipotle’s New Video Is Killer Content Marketing
Content marketing is about expressing your business’s values. While A Love Story doesn’t scream the name Chipotle, the values in A Love Story are clear. It’s a story about the sweetness of love that’s lost and regained and the fact that wholesome food can bring us together. The video is not edgy or hard-hitting, and it’s family friendly. When you watch it, you know that Chipotle is about love, family, and healthy food.
Content marketing is also about quality, and here too Chipotle excels. They’ve created a relatively long movie that draws viewers in, with a simple yet effective plot structure. Why spend all of this time creating a piece of art when a 20-second advertisement could send the same message? Content marketing is about wooing your viewers or readers, and Chipotle has created high-quality content that establishes viewer respect.
However, content marketing doesn’t need to be completely subtle. The movie has a message that becomes more and more clear as it goes on. It’s about the perils of a food system that considers tubes of sparkles to be food, and it’s about the delights of real, whole food. While it’s not verbally preachy, the content packs a strong message. As you developing your own content, you can create a strong case for your business by extolling the wider importance and context of what you do, rather than focusing on product features alone.
Content marketing is not just about the product, it’s about the stories you create around it.
Strong Content Marketing Creates a Compelling CTA
Content marketing offers opportunities to extend your connection to a company, and Chipotle does this through a unique, game-based Call to Action. Using a food memory game, you’re challenged to match the cards with ingredients from Chipotle’s food and avoid the sparkly additives. The result: no matter whether you win or lose, you’re invited to sign up for a BOGO offer from Chipotle. Once again, the focus is on a fun, immersive experience, and the offer is attractive but not the focus of the game.
Do you want your customers to fall in love with your business? At Media Shower, we know content marketing. Contact us to get three free content ideas.