Chipotle: Back to the Start

In 2012, Chipotle initiated an ad campaign known as “Back to the Start” in order to convince their consumer audience that the company only utilizes healthy resources for their products. The ad became increasingly popular, with it even airing in the Grammys the same year it was released. Chipotle desired to create a healthy image for themselves, by supposedly only using farm fresh ingredient. By choosing Chipotle, consumers were not only making the “healthy” choice for themselves but also according to the company, their decision also helped local farmers. In the video, the creator plays on the audience’s emotions, by comparing a local family farm and the mechanics of factory food production. A viewer would be much more likely to purchase from a company that uses produce from a family farm than another that uses factory resources. In addition, if the viewer purchased the background song of the advertisement, the proceeds would go to Chipotle’s charity of choice. The author of this advertisement clearly took full advantage of ethos to convince the audience to become active in civic life by supporting local farms.

In Michael Schudson’s “How People Learn to Be Civic,” he evaluates what it means for people to be civic. According to him, people become civic when it penetrates everyday life, when we join others in a common enterprise, when we are called to attend or ignore, and finally when civic infrastructure encourages civic engagement. For people who frequent this restaurant chain, this commercial most definitely breaches their daily life, making it an issue they cannot ignore. The rhetoric in this advertisement grasps the viewer’s attention, forcing them to reflect on their own civic participation. Could they become more involved in their community and help their local farmers? Chipotle plays on this, as a “good” citizen must be informed and play an active role, which Chipotle expects of their audience. Especially during this time, people were becoming increasingly concerned about where their food was coming from after a video of pink slime used for making beef was released across various social sites. Therefore, an exigence for the origins of food production became very common. In Lloyd F. Bitzer, “a work is rhetorical because it is a response to a situation of a certain kind”, therefore this advertisement was a response to the emotions of the general society during t

his time. However, doubts or constraints may exist surrounding the exact motive of the company’s production of this advertisement. There is always the question on how much of this advertisement is just for increased consumption or for charitable reasons. The answer to these questions depends on the critique of the viewer, as the rhetoric assigns the audience the duty of making the final judgement, as they ultimately make the decision to spend their money at Chipotle or go elsewhere.

This chipotle campaign is a perfect example of how an advertisement utilizes rhetoric and visual imagery to evoke actions from the audience in response to the situation.