Punk Rock Marketing

Be daring, be different, be impractical,

be anything that will assert integrity of purpose

and imaginative vision

against the play-it-safers,

the creatures of the commonplace,

the slaves of the ordinary.

-Cecil Beaton

This week I came across two marketing campaigns that I really liked– because they were different. Seemingly impractical but delicious all the same.

Best of all, I didn’t have to “like” anything on Facebook, or tweet about it, or subscribe to anything, or share the page in any way to participate. But I am doing all these things anyway, because they are just that cool. That’s damn good marketing.

The first you’ve probably heard about:
it’s Chipotle’s “No Junk” campaign.

I’d only been vaguely aware of Chipotle’s existence before now; I looked it up and it describes itself as

committed to using premium quality ingredients from more sustainable sources in its nearly 1,000 restaurants nationwide. That includes more naturally raised meat (from animals that are raised in a humane way, never given antibiotics or added hormones, and fed a pure vegetarian diet) than any other national restaurant company, increasing amounts of local and organically grown produce, and dairy products made with milk from cows that are not treated with the synthetic hormone rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone).

Well, that’s pretty awesome.

What’s happening here is, Chipotle is asking you to forward your junk email messages to nojunk@chipotlejunk.com. Moving that junk mail out of your inbox will help get junk out of school lunches: for every 100,000 junk emails Chipotle receives, the company will donate $10,000 to The Lunch Box, which will help to give approximately 32 million school children nationwide access to school-tested, junk-free recipes.

If you are inclined to keep track of such things, you can “like” Chipotle on Facebook and see how many emails get forwarded (one week in, and they’re at 95490 emails, $9540 in donation– they’ve capped the donation total at $50K, FYI).

So now, I think Chipotle is pretty cool, and if I ever notice one of their restaurants I’ll stop in and buy something to support them. I don’t even know what kind of food they sell.

That’s damn good marketing.

The second campaign is the brainchild of a seemingly unlikely alliance of Audubon, Toyota, and a team of tattoo artists,  called Tatzoo.

We wear species protection on our sleeve.

In our lifetimes, one third of all animals and plants could be gone forever. We think that’s messed up, heartbreaking, and incredibly dangerous. Our generation needs to unleash our fresh ideas, fearless attitudes, and social connectivity to tackle this crisis right now.

Tatzoo’s challenge is simple—engage 100 people in the course of 100 days to help save a local endangered species right here in California. How you do it is totally up to you.

The 15 people with the best ideas will be given a FLIP camera to document their journey and a tattoo of their species for their leadership. Submit your idea for a chance to be one of our lucky finalists.

How badly did I want to win this competition? REAL BAD.

Sadly, although I do manage to fall within the age parameters of 18-35, I am not a resident of California, where this is taking place. I can only hope the idea is so wildly successful that it comes to PA before I turn 35, in the not-so-distant future.

Is it a little nonsensical? To be sure. Can I just buy myself a tattoo of an endangered animal? Well, yeah. But I like the idea of being literally stamped for life as a leader, an environmentalist, as someone who made a difference, by my peers and by an organization I respect (Audubon, I’m on the fence about Honda).

I also really like this:

Even though I can’t compete, I’ll be keeping tabs what’s going on, sharing anything interesting, and voting for my favorites.

That’s damn good marketing.

It’s sad that innovative, freewheeling ideas are so rarely seen that they inspire me to write posts about them because I think it’s so unusual to be original.

Unusual, original ideas breed loyalty and enthusiasm. In this case, for FREE.

Why waste marketing dollars sending me something I’m going to delete, throw away, click on but never check again?

Why waste it on TV spots I don’t notice or ads I don’t read?

Waste, waste, waste. Waste of time and money.

You know how I feel about being wasteful.

Be different, be daring, be fun, be social.

Do something big, and good.

Life’s too short to be boring.