Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Worst Marketing Campaign Ever

Burritos are a new thing for me. In fact, I've probably only been eating burritos for about 1.5 years. Crazy, I know. Here's the thing: I can't eat beans. None of those squishy squashy, twice cooked, turn into mush in my mouth beans can go in this body of mine without me feeling as though I were a black bear in need of some serious hibernation. They just don't go with me. Well, little was I aware that burritos were also evolving into the gourmet realm along with every other food out there... A few adjustments here and there and I had discovered that I was fast joining the cult of the burrito snob. 
Having been recently removed to suburbia, I have not consumed a burrito for almost 8 months. The town next to us recently got themselves a Chipotle, so we decided to try it out. Well, the burritos were mediocre, the state had already taken away their liquor license and their marketing campaign to elaborate on how Chipotle sources their food locally was quite frankly, the worst thing out there. 



Don't try to make "local sourcing" cute. It panders to the complete morons who go in there (like the lady next to me in line who made a scene when she accused the one minority looking burrito maker of "not being able to speak english" and thus messing up her order when in fact she had failed to differentiate between beef and braised beef). What really peeves me about this marketing campaign is that it is in the voice of a farmer who apparently truly believes that his lettuce can call home, email or text message. And then the farmer apparently thinks that Chipotle is taking care of the lettuce. C'mon! I'm eating that lettuce! I'm certainly not taking care of it. I'm pressing that stuff firmly into a burrito along with a variety of foods and then that lettuce is going into my digestive tract. There is nothing cute about that. But what really frustrates me is the pandering to a generation of uninformed consumers about local sourcing. 

Why isn't it possible to speak about how sourcing your products from local farms is actually: 
1. Good for the local economy
2. Good for your health as they *theoretically* have to utilize less pesticides and preservatives when they don't have to transport your food so far. 
3. Able to drive awareness of goods and services closer to home
4. Much tastier. 
5. Promoting sustainable land management.  

I don't know I'm sure that there are a bajillion more things that are good about local sourcing but those are the ones I could think of off the top off my head.

C'mon Chipotle, we're not all idiots. 


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