Free quesadillas?!

To celebrate national quesadilla day (september 25th), Chipotle launched a digital scavenger hunt where they will disperse up to $1 million in free quesadillas. This effort was inspired by Data from DoorDash stating that the second most ordered food item in 2023 was chicken quesadillas. The well known food chain also used social media to their advantage in spreading the word. Beginning on september 23rd, chipotle dropped text-to-claim codes on instagram and other platforms for up to 21,000 consumers to redeem to win a free quesadilla along with the purchase of a regular priced chipotle entree. several TikTokers also dispersed their own codes in their content for up to 10,000 costumers to win a buy one get one free quesadilla. Chipotle is no stranger to banking off of national holidays, "For National Burrito Day in April, the chain launched an interactive game called Burrito Vault to dole out over $1 million in free burritos." 

This marketing strategy was put in place to increase sales, and it did not disappoint. According to the article by Marketing Dive, Chipotle in the second quarter reported 11.1% same-store sales growth, gains led in part by an 8.7% rise in comparable transactions." Over the last few years Chipotle as a company has had to expand at a rapid rate in response to the growing demand for Mexican food, and have had to come up with new marketing tactics to stay ahead of competitors like Qdoba and Baha Fresh who are becoming more and more relevant.  

The card of a company launching a scavenger hunt has been played many times before. But by making the reward one of their best selling items is what I think made this project so successful. In marketing it's important to pinpoint on a certain audience and focus specifically on selling to them, and that is exactly what chipotle did! By making the codes accessible through social media apps, The company is reaching some of their most loyal fans. Chipotle has 1.5 Million follows and instagram, and 2.5 Mil on Tiktok. Even though a fairly small percentage of chipotle customers actually follow them on social media, the ones that do are more likely to participate in the challenge. The use of social media influencers in promotional activities exemplifies the evolving landscape of digital marketing strategies.

In my opinion, this was a very good way to boost sales. I think that doing something like a digital scavenger hunt where in order to win the prize, you need to actively search for the codes, is a fun and easy way to get costumers excited about what you are selling. 

While I do think that the idea of interacting with costumers in this way is a good marketing strategy, I think that Chipotle could've found a way to make this launch more interactive. And i know your probably thinking, "isn't a scavenger hunt just about as interactive as it gets?" yes, yes it is. I think though that instead of having sponsored TikTok creators simply stating the BOGO codes in their videos (which doesn't really give you much to hunt for), they could have found a way to possibly hide the codes in their content, kind of like an easter egg (Just something to keep in mind for next National Quesadilla day). All in all, I think that this is a very fun and creative idea! 

After doing research and learning more about this subject, my biggest takeaway is that Marketing something that can be applied to so many aspects of a business, whether it be spreading the launch of a new product, trying to simply increase sales (like we've just seen), or simply building trust with your costumers. The key basic takeaways of good marketing is to A. pick a receptive target audience, and B. be unique. These basics apply whether your a large corporation like Chipotle, or your just trying to promote your freshly opened quesadilla food truck. (And cant quite give out free ones just yet)

“It’s not what you sell that matters as much as how you sell it!” – Brian Halligan 

Link to article: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/chipotle-digital-scavenger-hunt-national-quesadilla-day/727390/ 

https://www.chipotle.com/

https://www.tiktok.com/tag/chipotlepromo