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Communication Plan

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Problem

Many of our customers have given our restaurant chain low ratings and left negative

reviews on websites such as www.consumeraffairs.com.

Our overall rating on www.consumeraffairs.com is 1.5 out of five stars. Our biggest

competitor, Moe’s Southwest Grill, has a rating of three out of five stars. Most of these

low ratings were based on our guests having bad customer service experiences. Examples

include associates making rude comments, incorrect orders being placed and associates

appearing unenthusiastic and unhappy to be at work. Many of our guests simply feel like

they are not important to us.

Many unhappy guests have stated in reviews that they will not visit our restaurants

anymore, which means we will lose customers unless we are able to keep them happy and

make them feel important.

Example of a customer’s complaint on Consumeraffairs.com

“The food was disappointing. They rushed us through the line and one girl rolled her eyes at my mom. The cashier was HORRIBLE. Had anger issues over just having to be there. The food tasted over processed, salty, and not fresh. We will not be back.”

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Solution

To make our guests happy, we will launch a customer loyalty and rewards program that

will allow the guests to accumulate points they can redeem for discounts, meals, t-shirts

and other gifts.

Our loyalty program will operate through the Chipotle smartphone app and scannable

cards customers can receive at our locations. Besides the point system, our loyalty

program members will also receive free chips and guacamole for every fifth time they

visit a Chipotle location and receive a free burrito or bowl meal for every tenth visit.

After every fifth and tenth visit, the app will request the customer to leave a review of

his or her experience at Chipotle. This loyalty program will not only give customers the

incentive to earn free food, but will also make them feel important and rewarded for

being a valued friend and customer of Chipotle Mexican Grill.

We will create a four-month campaign to gain membership and raise awareness about our

new loyalty program. A free concert will be held in Denver to celebrate the launch of our

program. This will create an opportunity for customers to enjoy free food and music, on

the house, while learning about our new program and what it entails.

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Objectives

1. Informational objective: To raise awareness of the

new loyalty program among 50% of Chipotle customers in Denver between April 10, 2015 and August 1, 2015. • Fifty percent of Chipotle customers in the

Denver area will be an ideal number because Denver is Chipotle’s cultural hub, and Denver’s customers will be able to pass along the trend to their friends in other locations. The span of time between April 10, 2015 and August 1, 2015 is enough to raise initial awareness about the program and to get customers excited about the concert and signing up for the program.

2. Behavioral objective: To get 25% of Chipotle customers in Denver and to sign up for the loyalty program by August 1, 2015.

• Twenty-five percent of chipotle customers will be our membership objective by August 1, 2015 because that number is large enough to spread the word about our program and gain traction in a large market like Denver. The number will continue to grow after August 1, as more people sign up and start enjoying the rewards.

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Target Audience

Our target audience for the Loyalty program

campaign will be Chipotle customers in the Denver,

Colorado area. We will be targeting this market

because it houses 71 Chipotle locations, which makes

it our largest market. Denver customers have a

special love for Chipotle and its food because our

first location was started here in 1993. Customers in

Denver will also look forward to the program launch

concert because it will feature local musicians and

speeches delivered by Chipotle executives at a

popular Denver park.!!!

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Strategies

1. Social Media: We will use social media as one of our strategies to

meet our informational objective and our behavioral objective because

of social media’s ability to reach multiple members of our audience

immediately and keep them updated with the campaign as it

progresses. Social media platforms are also popular sources for news

and information regarding new trends, products, brands and events.

2. Print Media: We will use print media as a strategy to meet our

objectives because print media will extend our messages out to the

members of our audience who may not be online or using a smart

phone. Print media may also make a lasting impression on those who

come across our messages because the information is simplified and

not cluttered up with loads of other information as in social media or

digital media.

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Strategies Continued

3. In-store Promotions: We will use in-store promotions as a strategy to

meet our objectives because the messages will reach out to customers

who will already be in our stores and in our environment with our

products at the surface of their minds. In-store promotions will also

give our customers something tangible to take home with them rather

than a message they see on a sign or on a screen.!!

4. Special Event: We will use a special event to meet our objectives

because it is an easy way to gain awareness and make customers

happy. A special event will be our way of rewarding our customers

for choosing Chipotle, and it will give attendees the incentive to join

our program because the event will be based around the program

itself.

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Tactics

1. Social Media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

• Facebook, Twitter and Instagram will be our main social media

platforms to promote the campaign because most of our

followers and customers already keep up with our company on

these platforms. With only three social media platforms, we’ll

be able to focus in on our target audience and keep them

updated with messages and content on a daily basis.

2. Print Media: loyalty cards, billboard ads and flyers

• Billboard ads and flyers will provide our on-the-go customers

with information about the loyalty program and the launch

concert while they are driving around Denver or walking

through a college campus or public hubs in Denver. After the

program launches, the loyalty cards themselves will be a major

promotional tactic because customers who sign up at our stores

will receive tangible cards they’ll be able to show their friends

and family members, who in turn may want to join the program

to receive discounts and rewards too.

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Tactics Continued

3. In-store Promotions: loyalty cards, posters and ads printed on Chipotle

cups and bags.

• Posters are effective because they will reach out to members of our

target audience who are waiting in line for food or browsing around

the inside of our restaurants. The posters will be visually appealing

and will give bored customers something to look at and occupy their

minds with. The campaign ads on our cups and bags will be a

powerful tactic because they will contain coupons to be redeemed

for free chips and guacamole. Customers will not only learn about

the loyalty program this way, but they

will also be able to earn a free snack

from reading the ad.

4. Special Event: concert to celebrate the launch of our customer loyalty

program.

• On May 1, 2015, the day our loyalty program launches, we will host

a free concert for our fans and customers in Denver at the Montclair

Recreation center. The concert will feature performances by local

rock bands, free Chipotle t-shirts and accessories, free burritos,

guest speakers and sign-up stations for the loyalty program. This

concert will create an environment where customers can enjoy good

music, good food and the company of their friends and family while

celebrating the launch of our loyalty program with us.

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Timeline

MONTH

DATE

TIME UNTIL CAMPAIGN ENDS

TASK APRIL 1 Four months Propose budget

and tactics to corporate

APRIL 10 Three months and two weeks

Meeting to delegate duties and to contact resources. We will also implement a plan to make 14 posts per week on Facebook and Twitter and seven posts per week on Instagram.

APRIL 15 Three months and two weeks

Meeting to review social media analytics, ensure all promotional tactics are on par and ensure the concert performers and participants are confirmed

APRIL 20 Three months and one week

Meeting to review radio ads, billboard ads, flyers, posters and loyalty cards

APRIL 25 Three months and one week

Send out press releases to different news outlets

MAY 1 Three months “Music with Integrity” concert and loyalty program launch

MAY 5 Two months and Meeting to

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three weeks evaluate concert and launch

MAY 20 Two months and one week

Meeting to measure how many customers are signing up

JUNE 10 One month and three weeks

Meeting to measure the viewership of television advertisements and other advertisement tactics

JULY 20 One week and five days

Second meeting to measure how many customers are signing up

AUGUST 1 0 days End the campaign and start a SWOT analysis for overall campaign and loyalty program launch

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Budget

Total budget requested from corporate: $ 1,151,456

Line Items

! Social Media Monitoring and Analytics: $179.88

• Hootsuite.com subscription is $59.96/mo for each social media platform X

four months. (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)

! Print Media: $ 702,000

• Loyalty cards: We need 50,000 cards printed out for 71 Chipotle locations

in Colorado. $9,500 per store X 71 is $674,000

• Billboard advertising: We need to advertise the launch and concert on five

billboards for three months at $1,200/mo. 1,200 X five is $ 18,000.

• Flyers: We need 500,000 flyers at $0.02 each. The total is $10,000.

! In-store Promotions: $ 143,420

• Posters: We need two posters printed for 71 locations. $20.00 X 71 is

$1,420.

• Print Advertisements on cups and bags: $2,000 X 71 locations is

$142,000.

! Special Event: $251,025

• “Music with Integrity” is a free concert that will celebrate the launch of

our loyalty cards with free burritos and local artists

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• Venue Rental: We will host the concert at Montclair Recreation center

near downtown Denver at $25,000 for 5 hours.

• Press Release Distribution: We will use USPS’ services to distribute press

releases to eight news outlets for $25.00

• Radio Station Ad: We will air nine advertisements on the radio. It will be

$2,000 per advertisement, so it will cost us $18,000.

• Artists, Sound System and Stage Rental: $200,000

• Free Burritos: $5,000

• Cups, Plates, Napkins and Free Gifts: $3,000

Contingency fund (5 %): $54,831

Total Expenses for Loyalty Card Campaign: $1,096,624.88

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Evaluation

Strategy Tactics Measurement

Social Media

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

We will subscribe to www.Hootsuite .com, who will monitor the activity on each social media platform, how many likes our posts receive, how many people visit our pages, what type of feedback people are leaving and we will have automatic responses sent out to our customers whenever they leave comments. This will measure our level of customer acceptance, how our customers feel about us launching a loyalty program and how many customers plan on attending the Music With Integrity concert.

Print Media

Loyalty Cards, Billboard Ads

and Flyers

To measure loyalty card acceptance we will create a page on Facebook that will ask our friends and followers whether they plan to sign up for the loyalty program. Based on how many people choose “yes”, we will have a rough measurement of how many sign ups to expect. We will also monitor how many customers sign up for the program throughout the campaign. To measure how many people may see the billboards, we will check daily traffic reports for those streets where we will place advertisements to see how many cars pass by the billboard signs. To measure how many people will receive flyers we will see the difference of how many flyers we had printed out and how many people accepted or grabbed the flyers.

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In-store Promotions

Loyalty Cards, Posters and Ads

on Chipotle Cups/Bags

We will measure how many people may see the concert ads on the cups and bags, which will have coupons to redeem free guacamole and chips for their next visit. We will measure the success and acceptance of the loyalty program, after its launch, by recording how many customers sign up for it. The customers’ demographics will also be recorded to analyze the program’s acceptance among different social groups, so we can market the program more effectively.

Special Event

Music with Integrity Concert

We will measure how many people may possibly show up at the concert by counting how many of our friends and followers indicate they will be attending the concert on an event page we will create on Facebook. We will also monitor the acceptance of our concert by counting positive comments and likes on Facebook and by counting favorites and retweets on Twitter. We will measure the success of Music with Integrity by counting how many people attended the concert, how many people sign up for the loyalty program during the concert and what kind of comments/feedback people leave about the campaign after the concert.

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Questions/Concerns

FOR ANY QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS REGARDING

THIS COMMUNICATION PLAN, PLEASE CONTACT:

Rumi Rahman Chief Public Relations Liaison

Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.

(239) 273-2615 roomierah27@gmail.com @roomierah27 (Twitter)