Dive summary:
- Chipotle's Twitter account appeared to be hacked on Sunday when a stream of seemingly incoherent tweets were posted; the restaurant chain later admitted the hack was a promotional stunt.
- The stunt was part of the brand's 20th anniversary celebration that included a 20-day long scavenger hunt called "Adventurito," featuring 20 days of puzzles; the tweets were meant to be clues about the ingredients Chipotle uses to make guacamole.
- Chris Arnold, a Chipotle representative, told Mashable they thought the fake hack would cut through the noise on Twitter, and they were right; Chipotle added 4,000 new followers the day of the hack and were retweeted a total of 12,000 times.
Mittens13 password leave
— Chipotle (@ChipotleTweets) July 21, 2013
twitter Find avocado store in Arv
— Chipotle (@ChipotleTweets) July 21, 2013
From the article:
"Some on Twitter were quick to criticize those brands for trying to punk readers, but Arnold says the reaction to Chipotle's bizarre tweets was "overwhelmingly positive." In fact, he says the company may go so far as to release a t-shirt tied with the words "Please Twitter end Twitter," one of the infamous tweets from the episode."
