Can Chipotle’s Reputation Management Strategy Save the Brand?

From ContentStandard:

A string of food contaminations in its restaurants has put Chipotle in a desperate situation. Its sales in the final quarter of 2015 dropped by nearly 15 percent, and its stock is currently below $460 after an all-time high of $758 just a few months earlier.

To try and correct its course, the company took an unorthodox approach in reputation management: Yesterday it closed all stores for a few hours to educate its staff on proper food safety. Such a move would normally not be advised, but Chipotle is using that act to spearhead a new marketing campaign.

After E.coli and norovirus contaminations created dozens of instances of food-borne illnesses at Chipotle locations across the US, the company is poised to launch an aggressive campaign aimed at winning back customers and shifting the brand’s story. No part of that narrative, though, will address its food contaminations head-on. In fact, outside of the company-wide food safety training, its reputation management strategy won’t pay any attention to the devastating failures of recent past.

That’s by design, of course, and marketing experts agree that it’s a smart move. Revisiting the outbreak will only help those incidents stick in the minds of consumers. Instead, Chipotle will turn the page to a new chapter of its brand’s story. That will go a long way toward rebuilding the company’s reputation, but it won’t fix every problem and those lingering hurdles will prove the toughest for the company to clear.

In a way, Chipotle’s new marketing strategy is a deviation from the norm simply based on its scale. As Ad Age points out, the company has often invested in minimal marketing, relying instead on in-store campaigning and word-of-mouth among consumers to build and sustain its brand story.

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