Newsjacking

the Competition

Moe's Southwest Grill: Moe's Rubs Salsa in Chipotle's Wounds

On February 8, 2016, Chipotle closed restaurants nationwide for a company-wide food safety meeting. Moe’s seized the opportunity to tap into the Chipotle customer base and drive coverage and awareness for the brand on this day by offering “rebound” BOGO burritos to hungry consumers. 

To kick it off, the brand placed a full page ad in USA Today, touting that Moe’s was OPEN for business. The team then planned and executed an aggressive earned media program to amplify Moe’s news and own the conversation that day. Activities included a New York City media tour with Moe’s President Bruce Schroder, resulting in coverage on HLN, FOX Business News, The Street, Yahoo! Finance, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, TIME, and Mashable, just to name a few. 

By that afternoon, numerous outlets were buzzing about Moe’s, solidifying for the brand a place in the national pop culture conversation. By the following day, the campaign received nearly 580 million impressions and an additional 49 million in reach from Moe’s social handles.