Illustrating an abstraction like “integrity” with promotional products can be difficult enough, but carrying that message to children? That’s something that can really test your creativity.
Matt Kaspari, CAS, president and brand loyalist for Kaspo Promotional Products, faced such a task for a recent promotion for Chipotle Mexican Grill. Interested in educating children about the healthiness and social responsibility of its food, Chipotle hired Kaspo Promotional Products to help express the message of “food with integrity” in the Chicago and Denver areas.
The promotion was used within a larger event Chipotle was organizing called “Cultivate Fest,” an outdoor festival set in public parks filled with activities meant to educate attendees on the company’s dedication to “food integrity.” With that in mind, Kaspari settled on biodegradable planters and tomato-seed paper, both to be packed with an educational coloring book that Chipotle had sourced and created on its own.
Playful and fun, the promotion was not without a few twists. By focusing on his client’s core intent, Kaspari was able to take a few risks and deliver a successful promotion for his client.
Promo Marketing: What made this a successful promotion for you?
Matt Kaspari: To me, to see the kids’ engagement. A lot of the stuff that we do, it’s educating adults and things like that, so for me, I mean I’m a volunteer and a philanthropist, and for me to see kids interacting with a brand in that way, I thought was awesome.
PM: What was the best decision you made?
MK: We almost went with foil seed packets, just because of time and everything else. But we ended up sitting down with Chipotle, and they care so much about their brand (and so do we) so I said let’s go with the paper packets. I had actually only found foil packets for a while, then I found another source that had the paper packets, so that kind of stalled our process because we were already kind of going along with the foil. But I don’t know, to me, we ended up matching their brand better with something they already really wanted as well.
PM: Any other advice you’d give to your peers attempting a similar promotion?
MK: I just think it’s the engagement part. Make sure you’re using promotions to engage people, and remember to have fun. That’s what happened here. It was fun, it was interactive. When you do that, fun things like that with a brand, people like it and then they go tell people about how cool that brand is, you know? Our industry is fun, so you know, make it fun.
Want to be considered for a future edition of My Best Promotion? Contact Michael Cornnell at [email protected] or (215) 238-5449 for a list of questions and other details.
