Chipotle's Offensive Twitter Hack

Chipotle Mexican Grill had a lot of cleaning up to do after the brand's Twitter account was hacked for two hours on Sunday morning. Hackers changed the account's avatar to a picture of a swastika, edited the bio information, and sent out multiple tweets using offensive language to attack President Obama and the government systems.

Source: Coloradan Magazine

According to Mashable, Chipotle Communications Director, Chris Arnold, immediately responded to the hacking by making a public statement:

"Our Twitter account was hijacked overnight for about two hours during which a series of offensive tweets was posted to the account. We apologize for the nature of the posts that were made during that time, and we are now conducting an investigation to try to determine what happened and who might have been involved." 

During PR issues such as these where customers and audience members are offended, it is important for the brand to come forward with a spokesperson and a statement. Sitting back in silence can often lead to assumptions that your brand or organization is backing up whatever drama has occured. Not only did Chris Arnold speak on behalf of Chipotle, but the brand also tweeted a public apology and deleted all remains of the inappropriate hack.

Chipotle is commonly associated with positive marketing. Its current "Cultivating Thought" campaign involves printed literature on the restaurant's cups and paper bags as an activity for customers while dining. The works of well-known authors, such as Malcolm Gladwell, Toni Morrison, and Michael Lewis, and even a few faces from the entertainment realm, like Bill Hader, Sarah Silverman, and Judd Apatow, are used within the series. Additionally, the brand had a successful Twitter contest the week prior to the hack; followers posted haikus about Chipotle on Twitter and shared via Facebook to be entered to win a free entree for two.

Source: Vanity Fair

In July of 2013, Chipotle actually "faked" its own Twitter hacking as a publicity stunt for their 20th anniversary, and wound up with over 4,000 new followers the next day. Let's see how much @ChipotleTweets' followership increases after a real hack.

Hopefully the Communications staff was able to treat themselves to a hearty burrito after what must have been one stressful social media Sunday.

Fake It Till You Make It #ChipotleTweets

Most of the tweets posted Sunday were intended to tie into their 20-day long treasure hunt called "Adventurito," which features 20 days of puzzles. Sunday's fragmented tweets were clues of the ingredients they use to make their mouth-watering guacamole. Most of the clues from "Adventurito" have been popping up all over the place and this was the first time they tied them into their social media presence, which surely confused a lot of people.

This past Sunday, American food chain Chipotle Mexican Grill did something out of the ordinary in the social media world; they faked their own Twitter hack.

Chipotle took the expression "fake it till you make it" to a whole new level. According to Mashable,  its main account, @ChipotleTweets, posted a series of confusing and seemingly random tweets over the course of an hour. Now, the company has come forward and admitted that it faked having its account hacked as part of a publicity stunt tied to its 20th anniversary promotional campaign.

In the end, however, it worked out in Chipotle's favor. A representative from the company, Chris Arnold, reported to Mashable that their Twitter account added more than 4,000 followers the day of the "hack," compared to its normal rate of adding about 250 followers a day. The supposedly hacked tweets, which have not been deleted, were retweeted about 12,000 times. By comparison, Chipotle's Twitter account usually sees about 75 retweets per day.

What do you think about this social media saga? Would you advise your brand to stage a Twitter hack? We want to know!