Monday, July 25, 2016

Chipotle's woes- Rachel Robinson

An example of what I consider to be an unsuccessful social media post came in a June 26th from the already heavily scrutinized Chipotle Mexican Grill. Chipotle posted a picture on June 26th, 2016, the one-year anniversary of the day that gay marriage was ruled legal in the United States by the Supreme Court. Chipotle posted a picture of a man wearing a shirt with a rainbow-wrapped burrito on it and saying “homo estas” a play on the Spanish phrase “como estas” meaning “how are you?” In the 2016 book Social Media Marketing: A Strategic Approach, authors Melissa S. Barker, Donald I. Barker, Nicolas F. Bormann, Mary Lou Roberts and Debra Zahay, social media marketing ethics are highlighted. This post violates the SMM Ethic of respect, which was not shown in this post, which offends both Hispanic Americans and the LGBT community as a whole (p. 69). This post also fails to observe cultural differences such as how the Hispanic-American community might feel about their native language being mocked in such a fashion (p. 71). Although Chipotle generated much buzz from this post, with over 26,300 likes and 3,500 shares, I feel it is best to stay away from anything that can be construed as offensive.
-Rachel Robinson

Barker, M.S., Barker, D.I., Bormann, N.F., Roberts, M.L., & Zahay, D. (2016). Social media
            marketing: a strategic approach (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.



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