Chipotle

Establishing brand
presence with a
24-hour shelf life.

Project Information

Before the age of Instagram Stories and Tik Tok, there lived a social media platform called Snapchat. Chipotle, feeling disconnected from it's youthful audience, wanted to find a way reconnect on this new platform. To do so, we looked to the behavior of TV before DVR, and launched a weekly show.

School of Guac, led by our host--Hallie Peño, was our take on an after-school special meets variety program meets satirical news program. Our audience: HS and college kids craving some mid-afternoon Chipotle.

The series and each episode (approximately a 1 minute long Story comprised of multiple Snaps) were supported by a promotional campaign that included weekly tune-in messaging. The result was an 11 episode pilot season complete with holiday specials, nonsensical burrito wisdom, coupons, and even live election coverage.

THE IDEA

Look to the behavior of TV before DVR, and launch a weekly show. School of Guac, led by our host–Hallie Peño, was our take on an after-school special meets variety program meets satirical news program. Our audience: HS and college kids craving some mid-afternoon Chipotle.

THE EXECUTION

The premiere season of School of Guac ran for 11 episodes, including a Halloween special, on-the-ground Election Day coverage, and other cultural milestones, such as Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. Each episode was teased and promoted on our other social channels with trailers, cutdowns and even re-runs.

Next Project →

Credits

Agency - Carrot Creative
Client - Chipotle
Role - Design Director

Creative Director - Bharat Kumar
Motion Designer - Adam Rozanski
Designer - Adam Lowe
Senior Copywriter - Gio Serrano
Copywriter - Monica Sagowitz
Art Director - Helen Torney

Select
School of Guac Episodes

Series

WTF is this? - A game where you guess the meaning behind underutilized emojis
Mental Bites - A did-you-know series featuring strange food facts
Salsa De La Vida - Daily non-sensical questions to ponder
BurritoWOW! - Faux commercial promoting the many uses of a burrito
Burrito Whisperer - A "Deep Thoughts" inspired words of wisdom
TFWYG - Showcasing the feeling you get when adding guac to your meal

The Execution

Unlike Instagram at the time, Snapchat wasn't built for polish. For the first few years after launch, it was as raw as it gets - lo-fi, compressed images and video that could only be shot through the app itself. And Snapchat aimed to keep it that way in their Terms of Service. Third Party Uploaders could get you permanently banned from Snapchat.

So we had to get creative. We custom-built a rig that allowed us to shoot our previously edited, 4k footage using their in-app camera. The rig worked so well that we had to provide video proof of our process to avoid getting Chipotle banned from Snapchat.