Chipotle’s TikTok Page Is the Best Example of Gen-Z Marketing There Is
Less Tok, more Guac.
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TikTok is the new frontier of Gen-Z marketing. As TechCrunch put it, “If you haven’t been paying attention to TikTok, you haven’t been paying attention.”
Evidently, the world’s top brands have been paying serious attention. Hundreds of companies including Pepsi, Nike, Walmart, and Skittles have dialed in, taking the opportunity to garner gargantuan levels of views and cult followings.
“What we tell brands is, this is essentially Instagram in the early days,” said Anish Dalal, chief executive of digital-marketing company Sapphire Apps Media.
Since the social media titan took off in 2018, it’s been the most downloaded, most-watched, most talked-about platform. Teenagers in particular are completely gaga for the app, spending an average of 80 minutes a day scrolling through the uniquely addictive feeds.
The Washington Post hired a TikTok expert. Buzzfeed recruited Teen Ambassadors to cover the election through TikTok videos. Elf Cosmetics commissioned a song specifically for a TikTok campaign. In the history of TikTok, though, no brand has done it quite like Chipotle Mexican Grill.
The #GuacDance Challenge — billions of views, and counting
Marketing is ever-evolving. As our digital world continues to change, flyers, billboards, and traditional advertising media are quickly transforming into YouTube ads, pay-per-clicks, online PRs, and now: TikTok. Chipotle, for one, is unquestionably in tune with the nuances of current marketing tactics.
“Almost half of our customer based is Gen Z or millennials, so social media is a fact of life. They just expect you to be in the places where they are,” said CMO Chris Brandt.
In fact, the brand employs a team of researchers nicknamed “culture hunters” that act as bloodhounds tracking the inner workings of social media, spinning viral trends into social media campaigns. These Internet-savvy analysts bring diverse, cutting-edge ideas to the table — and in a stroke of genius, they engineered the #GuacDance Challenge in celebration of National Avocado Day, profiting off the infamous Dr. Jean guacamole song.
During its six-day run, #GuacDance racked up 250,000 video submissions and 430 million video starts. Besides taking the cake as TikTok’s highest-performing branded challenge, it also spurred the chain’s biggest guacamole day in history — 420,000 pounds of avocados to sell over 800,000 free guac sides. The challenge also won a Shorty Award in TikTok presence and a gold distinction in consumer brand.
From the success of #GuacDance, Chipotle has rolled out campaign after campaign, each more viral than the last: #Boorito — and four billion views — in honor of Halloween, family sponsorships in the company’s newest group ordering feature, free delivery promotions for National Burrito Day, and much, much more. When it comes to Chipotle, it’s apparent that there’s no end to innovation for digital strategy.
The rise and rise of influencer marketing
The ability of Chipotle to reach an astronomical audience is no fluke. During the #ChipotleLidFlip campaign, Chipotle partnered with YouTube personality David Dobrik to challenge users to show off their burrito-bowl lid-flipping prowess. The result? 111,000 submissions and 230 million views.
Since then, Chipotle has partnered with the biggest names in content creation, handpicking upper-echelon influencers — Loren Gray, Brent Rivera, and Zach King, to name a few. They’ve also catered to ritzy Los Angeles mansions — in particular, the Hype House, TikTok’s biggest content house.
“If you’re working with the right influencer, one who is choosing the right brand deals and being strategic about it, there’s a ton of power in what that voice can unlock with their community,” Joe Piaskowy, McDonalds’ former senior brand engagement manager, says. “And we see a ton of incredibly strong results in that micro level.”
After all, it’s only natural that when an influencer has tens of millions of followers, whatever they’re wearing, using, and eating will spread like wildfire. In other words, they’ll get their Gen-Z viewerships buzzing.
The power of anti-marketing marketing tactics
Besides picking A-list Internet celebrities, Chipotle has also started leveraging the power of user-generated content — real people sharing real stories. This approach is of the most notable reasons why Chipotle has earned the love of Gen-Z: authenticity.
When it comes to consumers, trust is the baseline. People don't like ads — but they’ll like it a bit more if they don’t realize it's an ad.
Take a quick scroll through Chipotle’s page and you’ll see TikTok’s golden formula in practice: short, relatable, and quirky videos. In one TikTok, a woman reenacts her mom’s first Chipotle visit. Another clip — viewed 9.2 million times — is titled “society if Boomers could say ‘Chipotle’ correctly.” None of these videos scream at the user, “eat at Chipotle!” Instead, they build the brand through a sense of community. In a nutshell, it’s anti-marketing marketing.
“Bringing through our human side as a brand works really well for us; you don’t want to show up and feel like an advertiser,” says Tressie Lieberman, VP of digital marketing.
The common denominator? Chipotle treats its brand as a living, breathing person, not a sales-hungry business out for publicity.
Now, Chipotle is at the top of the digital marketing food web, reaping the rewards from their venture into the uncharted territories of modern marketing. Instead of following Internet culture, they’re leading it — and if brands are smart, they’ll place their bets on TikTok, too.
