Chipotle’s Halloween ad tries to scare viewers with ‘unneces-scary’ ingredients
Chipotle’s ongoing ‘boorito’ stunt that allows any customer dressed up on Halloween to get a burrito for $3 has a new twist this year: customers instead have to add something unnecessary to their costume if they want to get a discount.
In a video called ‘Endless Line,’ the idea behind this year’s quirky request is explained when a woman accidentally walks into a ‘Cheapotle’ – a knockoff of Chipotle that uses cheap, artificial ingredients and flavor-injected chicken with decorative grill marks.
Created by Piro, the ad aims to drive home Chipotle’s message that the hundreds of ingredients added to fast-food items every day, like soy lecithin and propylene glycol, are unnecessary. According to the company, it only uses 68 ingredients.
Ending with the message, ‘The unnecessary additives in most fast food are creepy,’ the video then encourages viewers to ‘spook’ employees by adding something unnecessary to their costumes this year if they want to score a $3 burrito between 5 pm and close on Halloween.
Mark Crumpacker, chief creative and development officer at Chipotle, said: “We’ve always focused on sourcing the highest quality ingredients, and we are challenging our customers to learn about the unnecessary ingredients used in typical fast food by adding something ‘unnecessary’ to their costume. In exchange for adding an unnecessary item to their costume, we’ll donate $1 from their purchase to the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation to help in its efforts to create a better food future."
The campaign comes as the Mexican food chain fights accusations that it still serves food that contains genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the US even after it advertised that it has done away with them.
In April, it launched a campaign called ‘G-M-Over It’ that said GMOs no longer make the cut at Chipotle. Yet a class action lawsuit against the chain in California claims that some of its items still do contain GMOs.