Marketing genius through changing-up their cups has given Chiptole, which is already quite well known within youth culture as the greenest of fast-food chains, another measure of cred.
On May 15th, Chipotle launched their cup collection featuring 2-minute essays by famous writers such as Jonathan Safran Foer, who pitched Chiptole on the idea and the author of Eating Animals, plus Toni Morrison, George Saunders, Michael Lewis, and Malcom Gladwell, among others.
The idea came to Foer one day while eating a burrito at Chipotle and dying of frustration that he hadn’t brought a book or something to read. Foer met with Chipotle CEO Steve Ells and pitched the idea of putting interesting writing on the cups. Ells thought it was a great idea and asked Foer to choose the authors.
According to Foer, who did have some issues with the fact that Chiptole servers meat and he’s a vegetarian and wrote about issues of the meat industry in his book, “I mean, I wouldn’t have done it if it was for another company like a McDonald’s, but what interested me is 800,000 Americans of extremely diverse backgrounds having access to good writing. A lot of these people don’t have access to libraries, or bookstores.”
The essays range from quite humorous to mini-tests to thought-provoking issues.
Overall, the Chiptole cup story has already become a viral sensation, mainly because as Foer puts it, he didn’t do it for the money and he’s clearly not a supporter of large corporations. Chiptole on the other hand, simply thought it was a good idea and not all that difficult to do. The result is some good reading while eating and drinking.
