Cannes Lions
CREATIVE ARTISTS AGENCY, Los Angeles / CHIPOTLE / 2014
Awards:
Overview
Entries
Credits
Description
2014 marks the tenth anniversary of the phrase "Madison and Vine" being coined in the USA. Of course, this references the classic advertising of Madison Avenue and the famous intersection at Hollywood and Vine.
The market has developed greatly in ten years, from crude integrations (Doritos and Sprite for the obstacle course winner on Survivor) to inspired blockbuster franchises based on toy brands (Transformers).
The USA remains relatively unrestricted with regard to brand integrations (paid brand and product placement in movies, TV shows, song lyrics), although there is some resistance from TV and film writers and producers being forced to work brands into their storylines (e.g. every character on The Walking Dead would probably not drive a Hyundai).
The best "branded entertainment" work in the USA (The Beauty Inside), as with other countries like Australia (Dumb Ways To Die), seems to transcend the notion of being "branded" and simply entertains while simultaneously promoting brand values. Good news for the next ten years of Madison and Vine.
Execution
The Scarecrow film was launched on YouTube with no paid media for its first four weeks. Solely promoted through PR, starting with a USA Today exclusive and earned social media, the Scarecrow generated over 7 million views. The film became a trending video on YouTube, as the game was featured as an Editor’s Choice on the iOS App Store at launch.
The song was distributed on iTunes and promoted by PR, social media, mobile ads, and across Chipotle’s owned assets (Chipotle.com, etc.)
The film was also the opening cinematic for The Scarecrow mobile game, which has been downloaded over 650,000 times in North America
Later, in the rollout of the Scarecrow, a multi-faceted digital campaign was initiated to increase the viewership, including targeted search, paid YouTube views, and leveraging the YouTube video in mobile games across iOS devices.
Outcome
The Scarecrow franchise created a conversation about food in popular culture generating over 614,000,000 PR impressions.
In its first month, The Scarecrow sparked 18.4 million conversations across 17 social platforms with a 92.7 social sentiment score. For the first time, Chipotle unseated Taco Bell as top social brand on the Restaurant Social Media Index Top 250 list.
Since launching, the film has reached over 12,500,000 YouTube views. Over 650,000 people have downloaded the game, playing for an average of 5 minutes.
The song debuted #32 on Billboard's Streaming Songs chart and reached over 13,000 purchases on iTunes.
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