Article

Chipotle Twitter Hack: Hit or Miss?

August 2, 2013

By Gabby Shock,community manager, Barkley

Within the past few months, a few brands have fallen victim to various hackings; I’m sure we all remember the McDonalds and Burger King incident, as well as the Chrysler/Jeep Twitter hacking as well. So, as a community manager, you better believe I was pretty shocked when Chipotle announced last week that the brand actually faked its own Twitter hacking. Last Sunday, the brand’s main account, @ChipotleTweets, posted a series of random, seemingly unrelated tweets during the course of one hour. After a few days, Chipotle then came forward and announced that the hack was actually a publicity stunt to help promote “Adventurrito,” a 20-day long treasure hunt to help celebrate the brand’s 20^th anniversary.

In the spirit of playing devil’s advocate, I decided to take a look at why Chipotle’s faux Twitter hacking was a miss, but also why it was a possible hit.

What I don’t think worked in Chipotle’s favor:

An overall sense of confusion: This one’s pretty obvious. There’s no doubt that Chipotle most likely had followers on Twitter that weren’t completely aware of the “Adventurrito” promotion and the possibility of random social media shenanigans related to the promotion. The tweets seemed to confuse followers, and they immediately passed it off as a hack, unrelated to anything the brand was doing campaign or promotion-wise. While the idea might have made sense after the fact, I have a feeling the intent was lost on the majority of the brand’s followers.

Goes against Chipotle’s mission statement about honesty:While it’s doubtful that there was any malice behind Chipotle’s fake Twitter hack, one could argue that pranking your fans counteracts the brand’s mission of “Food with Integrity.” Don’t get me wrong; social media is a great channel to experiment with and should be an integral and well-considered portion of every brand’s campaign. However, getting caught up in a campaign and forgetting your brand’s branding can be detrimental. While pretending to be hacked and then admitting it was a hoax might be a situation easily shaken off by fans, the behavior has already placed Chipotle on “Publicity Stunts Gone Wrong” lists by several advertising, technology and business publications. It’s also likely to be added to every social media department’s arsenal of best and worst practice examples.

Poor timing:In light of recent allegations regarding the NSA and an increased awareness of the hacking group Anonymous, online security is a sore and controversial subject. There’s even a “hactivism” movement that’s attempting to have legislation signed to make online hacking a form of protest. Taking a lighthearted approach to account and information breaching seems cheap and mildly insensitive. There’s also the possibility that a hacking group could now target Chipotle.

 And of course, here’s what did work in Chipotle’s favor:

Huge increase in new Twitter followers and retweets:Chipotle representative Chris Arnold told Mashable that the brand gained more than 4,000 new followers the day of the hack, compared to the brand’s normal average of 250 per day. Chipotle’s random postings during the hour were also retweeted at a high rate, with about 12,000 total retweets. Analytically speaking, the Chipotle team can call this portion of the stunt a success; seeing a huge increase in followers and retweets is always something to take note of. Arnold also added that the reaction and sentiment following the bizarre tweets was “overwhelmingly positive.”

Faked Twitter hackings have happened before:Following the previously mentioned Jeep/Chrysler hack, MTV and BET staged their own versions, essentially swapping accounts and passing it off as a hack. The two parties later admitted to doing it on purpose, and the stunt received a high amount of exposure, though I should note that there were mixed reviews from fans; some thought it was fun and creative, others found it cheap and unnecessary.

Ultimately, it made me really want Chipotle:That’s the goal, right? Sure, the tweets were confusing and pretending one of my brand’s accounts has been hacked is on my list of “social media don’ts,” Chipotle has been on my brain the entire week, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was on the minds of other fans as well. Regardless of whether it was a smart social media move or in-line with their brand’s mission statement, there is presumably a part of Chipotle that is still excited and happy over the coverage the stunt has received. Though, as mentioned in the Mashable article, Chipotle representative Chris Arnold says the brand won’t do anything similar any time soon.

What are your thoughts? Was the fake hack a smart move on Chipotle’s part?

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