CH 6. - Consumer Decision Making

     Companies should not fool themselves into believing that everyone wants to hear a green marketing message. Chipotle fully understands that the three most important factors in the consumer decision-making process for its products are price, taste and location. If it doesn’t get these factors right, then nothing else will matter.   

     In general, studies have found that millennials ages 18 to 34 do have higher expectations for ethical behavior by the companies with which they do business and are more receptive to green marketing messages. However, even among millennials, about one-third of this segment reports that, there are too many causes and it’s overwhelming, and, words like “green,” “eco,” “natural” and “sustainable” are so overused that they are almost meaningless.

     According to The Intelligence Group’s “Cassandra Report,” which studies the habits of the millennial generation, more than 60% of millennials report that they want brands that follow ethical practices and align with social causes. However, only 9% often make an effort to buy green products, while 36% report that they rarely or never make an effort to buy green products, according to “An Examination of Marketing Techiniques That Influence Millennials’ Perceptions of Whether a Product is Environmentally Friendly,” published in the Journal of Strategic Marketing. Therefore, green marketing messaging should be targeted at a narrow segment of the population as a whole, and such messages appear to be better received by a subsegment of the millennial demographic overall. 

     Espey says that only an estimated 5% of Chipotle’s customers have any significant depth of knowledge about the company’s Food With Integrity efforts. While Chipotle is devising marketing efforts to improve those awareness levels, the company understands the constraints and is not deluded to think that it can change this dramatically. 

     However, it may be more likely that those customers who do learn about sustainability efforts will become brand evangelists with high word of mouth activity. Chipotle reaches out to these customers through extensive use of social media including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to spread its green message. The company’s Facebook page has received more than 2 million ‘likes.’  

     Chipotle also has “student brand managers,” on-campus brand ambassadors who are dedicated to “changing the way people think about and eat fast food” through grassroots marketing efforts aided by a local Chipotle marketing rep. Seeking permission to have a deeper and more intimate conversation with these key customers has the potential to significantly increase overall awareness and importance of sustainable food production issues among Chipotle’s customers and, in turn, build a significant cult-like following among the company’s most loyalty customers.