In a span of three months, Chipotle generated a major buzz with not one, not two, but three digital promotions. With a 24.7% increase in digital sales in 2021 — accounting for 45.6% of Chipotle’s $7.5 billion in revenue — the fast-casual industry leader has become known for it’s digital creativity. These, however, set a new standard. And, they’re proof that the right retail technology can power even the most spontaneous, most innovative campaigns you can dream up.
Here at Sparkfly, we love working with our friends at Chipotle to help make these creative campaigns happen. In each of these, we supplied unique offer codes, then tracked each individual customer on their path to purchase. And of course, great campaigns need to come with great data. Our ecosystem captured each action the customer took — along with the preferences they showed throughout the process — so Chipotle has data to segment, personalize, and optimize future campaigns.
Let’s break down the details:
October 2021: Chipotle officially enters the metaverse with a virtual store on Roblox
To celebrate the 21st anniversary of its Halloween campaign Boorito, Chipotle became the first restaurant brand to open up its virtual doors on Roblox. For four days, Chipotle gave away 30,000 free burrito offer codes to fans who dressed up their Roblox avatar in Chipotle-themed Halloween costumes. Not one of the first 30,000? No problem. We had separate unique offer codes ready for the customer’s choice of a $5 burrito bowl, salad, or taco entree.
December 2021: Chipotle helps Halo Infinite players work towards the maximum Battle Pass level
The holiday gifts came early when Chipotle began offering five Halo Infinite Challenge Swaps in exchange for an order on its website or in its app. The technology behind it seems simple, but make no mistake, it takes a versatile ecosystem to pull this off:
- A Halo Infinite player places a digital Chipotle order and uses one of Sparkfly’s $0 reusable codes (HALO117) at checkout
- Sparkfly populates a custom offer group, alerts Chipotle, and triggers an email to the player containing the unique code for his Challenge Swaps
- The player activates the code and, voila!, he’s one step closer to Battle Pass
But that wasn’t all Chipotle’s retail technology powered during this promotion. For the entire month, Chipotle Rewards members could also redeem 100 points to get even more Halo Infinite Challenge Swaps.
January 2022: Chipotle hits a new level of spontaneity, thanks to BTS
January 23rd was just an ordinary day… until boy band megastars BTS posted a YouTube video of themselves eating Chipotle for the very first time. Jungkook especially liked it, but when he accidentally called Chipotle “Chicotle,” the newest viral digital campaign was born. Within hours, Chipotle changed its Twitter display name to “Chicotle” and partnered with a BTS Army fan account to give away 7,000 free entree promo codes the very next day. It was a spontaneous offer that made headlines around the world. Talk about a tech twist.
Your brand doesn’t need to reach the levels of international boy band fame in order to execute digital offer campaigns that get everyone talking. As long as your tools and systems are all unified on one integrated platform, the only thing that’s left to do is let your imagination run wild.