Chipotle Has Figured Out the Marketing Strategy of the Future

This isn’t exactly a new playbook, but Chipotle launched a new campaign where they invite 100 influencers into their kitchens at locations across the US to see how the food gets made and create their own videos. The predictable tagline is all about how their “real” food has nothing to hide. At the same time, Burger King is heavily promoting their “new” chicken nuggets made with 100% white meat (maybe don’t ask what they were made of before). Meanwhile Arby’s is promoting their steak nuggets as more real because they don’t come in “silly shapes.” This war to declare themselves as more real than their competitors may be playing out among QSR restaurants right now, but it’s a fight that will soon extend to many other industries as well.

As consumers feel more overwhelmed by the fake and overly processed, the battle to be a brand that is more real, authentic and human continues to be more fundamental. Now that the submissions are rolling in for this judging season of the Non-Obvious Book Awards, I am seeing this same trend echoed in multiple books. It’s becoming so common that I’m thinking about creating a compilation of campaigns around this topic and publishing a bigger roundup. For that, I’d love to know if you have seen campaigns or initiatives in other industries like this that might be worth adding to the list. Let me know!