Deconstructing Chipotle: Media as Environmental Education

López, Antonio

Publication

Deconstructing Chipotle: Media as Environmental Education

López, Antonio

Abstract

Chipotle, a popular fast food restaurant that promotes a sustainability message (“Cultivate a Better World,” “Food with Integrity”), produced two viral animated media campaigns, “Back to the Start” (Chipotle Mexican Grill, 2011, August 25) and “The Scarecrow” (Chipotle Mexican Grill, 2013, September 11). According to the New York Times, “Back to the Start” was rated by Zeta Interactive as one of the Top 10 videos in Internet buzz in 2011. The award-winning “The Scarecrow” also achieved critical praise. Both spots use clever animation and popular culture references to promote a sustainability message, allowing Chipotle to position itself as an ethical food alternative in relation to more conventional fast food venues. Chipotle uses its media campaigns to educate consumers about opposing food production paradigms (local and familyfarming versus factory farming). However, some critics have argued that the campaign is misleading and that Chipotle’s sustainability practices are contradictory and ambiguous; its marketing strategy could be considered to be an example of “greenwashing,” which is the practice of marketing unsustainable products as being positive for the environment. Drawing on media analysis techniques and ecocriticism, students critically assess in a written assignment (six to eight-page paper) the messaging Chipotle uses to promote its ethical and environmental food brand to explore environmental ideologies and ecological discourses. This assignment builds on five lessons: 1) media as environmental education; 2) environmental ideologies; 3) ecocriticism and environmental discourses; 4) food systems and marketing; and 5) greenwashing. The written assignment and lesson plan prompts students to evaluate Chipotle’s environmental claims, and to determine if its media campaigns can be reconciled with its actual business practices. In doing so students gain insights into how media act as a kind of environmental education (or “miseducation,” as the case may be).