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What Chipotle could have done to make its mobile ad campaign successful

Chipotle is aiming to celebrate local and fresh ingrediants via a new mobile advertising campaign that it is running. Although the campaign has several enticing elements, it misses the mark with a poorly executed, non-optimized landing page.

Chipotle is running the mobile campaign within Pandora?s iPhone application. The campaign celebrates farmers markets and local food.

?The call-to-action from the campaign is a little unclear with just an arrow showing the consumer how to engage further,? said Simon Buckingham, CEO of Appitalism. 

?Also the background color is too heavy making the text and images not stand out well on a mobile screen,? he said. 

?Mobile devices experience glare so campaigns should use a lighter background color where possible.?

Chipotle offers a menu of burritos, tacos, burrito bowls and salads. The Mexican grill opened its first restaurant in Colorado in 1993 and currently operates more than 860 restaurants nationwide.

Mobile awareness
Chipotle is running expandable and audio ads within Pandora.

The company is encouraging consumers to see which farmers markets it visits.

The campaign aims to promote fresh ingredients that the company uses on a day-to-day effort.

Via the campaign, users can check out participating farmers markets, as well as the location and date it is taking place.

While the initiative is smart, especially since it promotes the company?s ongoing effort to promote its fresh ingredients, it would have been more effective had the landing page been optimized for mobile.

Not only was it not optimized, but consumers were unable to zoom back, therefore, they were not really able to see the text on the screen.

It is important that a mobile advertising campaign be mobile-optimized fully.

Although the creative may be great, the execution has to be just as effective.

If the mobile content is not optimized, marketers are missing on a big opportunity.

?The fact that the main pages are not mobile optimized is disappointing but most consumers can pinch and adjust the screen if they really want to ? the key is to get the campaign message and visuals right, otherwise people won't engage with the campaign and get to the main pages,? Mr. Buckingham said.

Final Take
Rimma Kats is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York