While visiting Chipotle recently, I came across something I hadn’t seen before. No, it wasn’t the awe-inspiring quesarito. It was something subtler. Featured on my fountain drink was an ad for “Farmed and Dangerous”, a four-part webseries produced by Chipotle that recently debuted on Hulu.
Billing Chipotle as the “Producer” struck me as odd. Sure, brands have been sponsoring content for ages. Television wouldn’t exist in its current form without the support of advertising. A brand serving as producer instead of advertiser almost seemed invasive, as if they had stepped out of a supportive role and cannibalized the content itself. But, I couldn’t judge until I watched it, so I did.
Is it any good? It’s not necessarily must-watch, but it’s not necessarily awful either. Elizabeth Weiss at The New Yorker wrote an excellent review that explores its entertainment value in detail, as well as the history of similar programming.
More interesting to me is how and why the series exists at all. In fact, what exactly is it in the first place? Is it branded content? Is it native advertising? Is there even a difference? In an effort to find out, I set off in search of some answers.
You say branded content, I say native advertising
First off, what are branded content and native advertising? There certainly appears to be an overlap between the two (Adweek refers to them as “cousins”). When talking about either, a common point of reference is the age-old advertorial in print publications. It’s styled to match the look and feel of the surrounding editorial content but carries the underlying purpose of promoting a product or service. A more relatable example would be articles on BuzzFeed, Cracked, Thought Catalog, LinkedIn, or any other number of online outlets that feature a “Sponsored by…” tag. Sometimes the brand’s influence is clear; sometimes it requires a more discerning eye.
It’s become quite the offering for publishers - the Wall Street Journal estimated that $1.56 billion of native advertising was sold in 2013 alone. By comparison, according to Kantar Media, from 2003 to 2012 marketers spent $1.85 billion on the Super Bowl. Why are brands tripping over each other to shell out almost a decade’s worth of Super Bowl ad dollars on this burgeoning medium?
It’s simple: As consumers, we’re constantly bombarded with messaging, especially online. Banner ads have seen click through rates plummet from 9% in 2000 to 0.2% in 2012, with half of mobile ad clicks estimated to be accidental. Solve Media caused quite the stir last year when they declared you’re more likely to survive a plane crash than click on a banner ad (which isn’t necessarily true, but you get the picture).
Native advertising, in theory, allows brands to disguise themselves in a format that users are already familiar with (and in turn, more likely to consume the content).
Along comes video
The most prevalent of this new content format has been the sponsored article, particularly on BuzzFeed, where 17 of the top 25 native ads have been featured. That’s pretty impressive when you consider that the site is selling them at an average rate of $20,000 each. Other publishers have caught on quickly, though, and are allowing native advertising as quickly as producers can supply it. A number of companies have emerged as content distributors with the ability to place on more traditional sites such as The Washington Post, AOL, Forbes, Time, and Slate.
Let’s get back to Chipotle, though. The chain has always seemed to be on the more innovative side of marketing, with their “Back to the Start” and “Scarecrow” videos receiving high praise in the last few years. So, it should come as no surprise they’ve made a move into native by partnering with the Huffington Post to sponsor a section titled “Food for Thought”. The content primarily focuses on Chipotle’s longstanding push to inform customers about sustainable farming practices and the potential perils of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).
The most intriguing part of Chipotle’s strategy here is how they bridged the gap from simply sponsoring a portion of a popular content hub to becoming a full-scale video producer, complete with the same cohesive message: Big Agriculture cares more about profits than people, so they’re fine with putting out a potentially-dangerous product if it helps the bottom line. You can imagine how receptive the industry is to this idea. Does the series succeed in compelling viewers to act on it? You can’t deny that Chipotle definitely pushes the agenda, but I have a hard time believing a viewer would make conscious dietary decisions based on a show with exploding cattle.
So, does brand-as-producer work?
As a webseries, I don’t see Farmed and Dangerous becoming a breakout success. Listing Chipotle as a producer is fair, because it’s clear they were directly involved in the creative process. Maybe if they had stepped back, toned it down, and collaborated with someone established like Under Armour did with Funny or Die, perhaps they would have had a better shot at going viral.
That’s assuming they wanted the series to go viral in the first place. Perhaps Chipotle was simply trying to produce a piece of higher-quality content than other brands’ “20 things about…” lists. When it’s compared to other native advertising out there, it’s pretty impressive. It takes advantage of Hulu’s serialized format in a way I haven’t seen a brand do before. And it doesn’t try to dupe or bait viewers like other pieces of branded content – Chipotle’s ties are clear as day. “Farmed and Dangerous” may not be Academy Award material, but there are plenty of other awards out there I imagine Chipotle would be happy to win for this inventive series.
