Chipotle, Turner, and Mediahub Collaborate on Industry-First, TV-Guaranteed Sales Lifts with New Campaign

Chipotle’s new “For Real” campaign, facilitated through their agency Mediahub, will run across Turner’s television properties to charter a new territory in the next frontier of TV buying.  For quite some time, there has been talk about “guaranteeing on business results” tied to sales but it took a culture brand, a tech and data savvy company, and a challenger media agency to make it happen. Business outcomes serving as the basis for the primary pledge of a television advertising campaign is step-change for an industry that has been transacting almost solely on age and gender metrics for more than a half-century.

“TV is no longer solely about mass market reach, now it’s solidly connecting eyeballs and sales in a way that influences our media plans and bring accountability to our TV spends,” said Chris Brandt, Chief Marketing Officer at Chipotle. “As a purpose driven brand that has a history of industry disruption, we are continually looking for ways to innovate and are excited to be taking this step with Turner and Mediahub.”

At its core, Chipotle is a forward-thinking brand. Opening their doors in 1993, Chipotle completely re-defined “fast food” as “Real Food, Fast”, using high-quality raw ingredients and classic cooking techniques. Always looking to push boundaries and challenge the norm, the fast-casual brand has taken this perspective when considering advertising partners for the fall. Chipotle has partnered with Turner, a disruptor in its own industry, in a first-to-market linear TV deal, combining the targeting of the media company’s AudienceNOW solution with the holy grail of business-result guarantees.

“We’re always testing and learning, and we are excited when clients like Chipotle are just as eager to jump in and innovate with us,” said Dan Riess, executive vice president of Turner Ignite. “While it’s certainly early days in understanding how to scale deals based on business outcomes, this campaign will serve as a first step towards a future where marketing can be much more precise and impactful for brands, and more importantly, for consumers. Turner is proud to be leading the charge with Chipotle and Mediahub.”

Chipotle’s fall campaign will be optimized and targeted across Turner’s portfolio of premium content brands, serving advertising in those programs that best fit the Chipotle customer. The impact of this audience-targeted campaign is being guaranteed based on a sales lift occurring from audiences exposed to Chipotle’s advertising compared to non-exposed viewers. This is a crucial first step to getting to a world where media can be optimized for outcomes in a more dynamic fashion.

The partnership will serve as an important indicator of how to scale adoption of metrics that uncover advertising’s impact on a brand’s business, particularly important as more data-driven offerings are adopted within the marketplace.

“We have been working with the team at Turner to bring this first-to-market deal to life for quite some time. As the video landscape becomes more and more fragmented, we see this as a pivotal moment in changing the way we think about and activate TV campaigns,” said Lori Cassorla, VP Associate Media Director at Mediahub. “It’s exciting to innovate with Chipotle and Turner, who are willing to challenge the status quo and test-and-learn with us.”

Turner, through its Ignite division formed in 2015, has been at the forefront of developing solutions and pushing new ad models that advanced the media industry and finally fully account for the value of premium content.

At its 2018 upfront, the company’s call to action for the industry to adopt data-driven practices led to a five-fold increase in its secured ad commitments for audience targeting deals. Turner is also a founding member of OpenAP, an industry consortium that is standardizing audience buying within premium video.

About Chipotle
Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE: CMG) is cultivating a better world by serving responsibly sourced, classically-cooked, real food with wholesome ingredients without added colors, flavors or other additives. Chipotle had more than 2,450 restaurants as of June 30, 2018 in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Germany and is the only restaurant company of its size that owns and operates all its restaurants. With more than 70,000 employees passionate about providing a great guest experience, Chipotle is a longtime leader and innovator in the food industry. Chipotle is committed to making its food more accessible to everyone while continuing to be a brand with a demonstrated purpose as it leads the way in digital, technology and sustainable business practices. Steve Ells, founder and executive chairman, first opened Chipotle starting with a single restaurant in Denver, Colorado in 1993. For more information or to place an order online, visit WWW.CHIPOTLE.COM.

About Turner
Turner, a WarnerMedia company, is a global entertainment, sports and news company that creates premium content and delivers exceptional experiences to fans whenever and wherever they consume content. These efforts are fueled by data-driven insights and industry-leading technology. Turner owns and operates some of the most valuable brands in the world, including Adult Swim, Bleacher Report, Boomerang, Cartoon Network, CNN, ELEAGUE, FilmStruck, Great Big Story, HLN, iStreamPlanet, Super Deluxe, TBS, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), TNT, truTV and Turner Sports.

About Mediahub
Mediahub is the global media planning and buying arm of MullenLowe Group, with offices in 14 markets and more than 500 employees around the world. The award-winning agency works with forward-thinking brands to develop media programs that consumers seek out, share and talk about, and believes that intelligence, ideas and improvement are the three levers that unlock inspiring media platforms and make their campaigns stand out. Mediahub clients include Chipotle, Eurosport, Harley-Davidson, JetBlue, Netflix, Royal Caribbean, Staples, Global Road and Western Union. In 2018, Adweek named Mediahub US Media Agency of the Year and also honored John Moore, Global CEO, as Media Executive of the Year. For the past two years, MediaPost has recognized Mediahub as its Creative Media Agency of the Year.