To promote her new album Plastic Hearts, Miley Cyrus started commenting on her fans’ TikTok videos, which quickly got the internet's attention and kicked off a trend. People started posting videos saying “if Miley comments...” they’d name their baby whatever Miley chose, marry their best friend, or get whatever tattoo she suggested.
Knowing many of her fans fell into Chipotle’s target 18-34 target demographic, the brand decided to get in on the action with the hope that Miley would reply.
The team quickly created and posted a video saying “If Miley comments we’ll name a burrito after her in the Chipotle app.” The next day Miley commented back and 24 hours later Chipotle put her order on the menu nationwide. We called it “The Guac Is Extra But So Is Miley Burrito.” Then we posted the news to Chipotle’s Twitter and the story took off.
In 2020, high dollar celebrity food brand collaborations were popping up everywhere, with elaborate commercial campaigns and exclusive merch drops.
Chipotle saw an opportunity to flip the script and partner with one of music’s biggest stars organically, and have it all start on social media.
The stunt was aimed at Miley’s fanbase, as well as Chipotle’s wider 18-34 year-old target market. Beyond the viral TikTok campaign, Chipotle amplified Miley’s burrito through email and SMS messages to its 20M Rewards members and press outreach, which earned Chipotle over 1.4 billion media impressions.
To partner with Miley, we had to act fast. Within 48 hours of the challenge going live, we began production on a TikTok video for her to comment on. A day later, we were live on Chipotle’s channels. The following afternoon, Miley commented on the video and announced her order: a vegetarian burrito she dubbed “The Guac Is Extra But So Is Miley Burrito.” Thanks to Chipotle’s lightning-fast tech team, her entree was live in the Chipotle app nationwide the next day.
In lockstep with Miley’s comment on Chipotle’s TikTok video, Chipotle began media outreach about the partnership. To help grow the Story beyond TikTok and drive people to order Miley’s burrito in the app, Chipotle gifted the singer with a massive novelty delivery bag, which she then posted to her Instagram and Twitter accounts, reaching an additional +170M fans.
The Guac Is Extra But So Is Miley Burrito went viral almost instantly. Over the course of a week, the partnership spawned by a TikTok challenge was everywhere from late night TV to YouTube food vlogs, earning Chipotle over 1.4B impressions and over 600 press mentions. In addition to driving social buzz, the stunt also brought awareness to Chipotle’s vegan and vegetarian options at mass scale, and opened the door for a larger, organic partnership with Miley in 2021.
The campaign earned over 500K social engagements and reached nearly 200 million users organically on social, all with $0 paid in partnership fees.
Miley posted the Chipotle menu item to all of her social channels (for free) and press widely picked up on the story.
