The problem with reading an assortment of quality ad blogs (which are also free, making them, wait for it, a value) is that I’m often subjected to hideous advertising that I have either yet to see or would never see in the wild. “The wild” being Plano, Texas. Such was the case yesterday when I popped over to The Denver Egotist and read about Chipotle’s new ad campaign.

If even you’ve never eaten at a Chipotle out of fear of mispronouncing it when asking go workers to go with you, you may still recall their iconic, billboard-heavy campaign from several years ago. The campaign featured a ginormous burrito wrapped in aluminum foil accompanied by a mildly snarky line like “Usually when you roll something this good, it’s illegal” or “Objects in mirror are larger than they appear.” Fun stuff.

Then the Chipotle Corporate Overlords grew tired of having such nearly universally loved ads and a brand that was exploding all over the map despite their ridiculous $1.75 charge for guacamole and left their first love TDA and gave the account to Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners who cranked out something I can’t even describe and so will simply link to . Backlash ensued. Campaign died.

Now Chipotle is back with their new campaign created in house. It’s what I like to call a “falafel campaign” in that is full-awful. (I only use puns for evil.) I’ll admit that Chipotle probably couldn’t continue a big-arse burrito-focused campaign forever. But this? This fake rage against a fake ad agency propaganda that only ad agency people will even sorta understand?

I mean, take this billboard for example:

Bad Chipotle Outdoor




The ad agency wanted them to be more direct? What agency were they working with? Rapp? Unless by “direct” they mean “clearly communicating a message people give a rip about.” Then by all means, be more direct. And leave the tired highlight-some-words-in-a-line-to-make-another-phrase shtick at home.

At least their steak tacos are still good.

Later,

Fox

P.S. If anyone can tell me how to get that image centered in WordPress, drop me a line. Tried various tweaks to the CSS file, but nothing sticks.