American fast-food chain Chipotle celebrated National Burrito Day with the second-largest digital sales day of all time and the highest one-day volume on social media. It achieved this feat by focusing efforts on Twitter.
Tressie Lieberman, Vice President of Digital Marketing and off-premise for Chipotle, said they have stayed true to their longtime goal surrounding the holiday. “Our overarching strategy is to supercharge the super fans. We believe our fans are different, they’re so passionate about the brand and we try to give them things that they want to talk about and share with their communities.”
Chipotle dispersed text-to-win codes on Twitter giving away 10,000 free burritos, an additional 500 codes to users as an added surprise, and free delivery on $10 orders. Lieberman said demand surrounding the effort soared, with each round of text codes dropped by Chipotle claimed in less than a minute, over one million SMS messages sent, and over 150,000 social media messages from consumers asking for a free burrito.
The executive explained that every year Chipotle tries to do the unexpected and really shake things up. “This year, I think because we hadn’t tapped into this insight yet, it was very unexpected, people weren’t thinking that we would actually drop free Chipotle in that way, so we felt it was the right moment to make it happen.”
The brand also achieved this through a partnership with GrubHub the day prior to National Burrito Day to offer 20,000 free burritos to consumers who placed a minimum $20 order on the app. Chipotle also partnered with Alix Earle, the social media mogul who is currently the top-ranked influencer among teens, to promote the deal on TikTok.
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