New Chipotle ad

It’s officially an ad for the game/app rather than an ad for Chipotle, but, y’know, it’s also an ad for Chipotle.

It’s beautifully made, capturing perfectly the tone of exhausted despair they established so well in Back To The Start (by the way, does everyone now have to get a slightly left-of-centre cover version of an old song as the soundtrack to their ad? Of course, they did it brilliantly in the first one, but as it spreads throughout the less original corners of adland this technique is beginning to grate).

However, this time they seem to have felt the need to pile layers on top of what is a very simple story: we make our food in ethically sound ways; other companies don’t.

When you look at Back To The Start it says everything necessary and sets the bar so high that much of the rest of advertising pales in comparison. So how do you follow that up? Apparently you tell the same story but in a more obtuse way and make it part of a game/app.

Ironically enough that leaves me with the feeling that Chipotle has added the unnecessary injections and disguises they are criticising other companies for employing. Food that’s simple and good=advertising that’s simple and good makes sense to me. Food that’s simple and good=advertising that’s unnecessarily elaborate, obscuring a clear message with some la-di-dah extras? Less so.

It’s not bad by any stretch; it’s just a little off target for me.

(By the way, I eat at Chipotle almost every weekday. I love Chipotle. Three cheers for Chipotle.)