Brief:

• Dos Toros, a fast-casual Mexican chain with locations in New York and Chicago, boosted its Instagram following by creating another account dedicated to humorous memes featuring a character named Pinto the Burrito, per Adweek. The @PintoTheBurrito account has more than 120,000 followers, helping to boost the brand's @DosToros account more than 10 times to 40,000 followers in the past two years.
• Pinto is a foil-wrapped burrito with cartoon eyes and a mouth that cracks jokes and appears in historical events like the Last Supper or pop-culture moments like an episode of "Jerry Springer." An in-house team at Dos Toros created the character based on their own social media preferences, said Leo Kremer, co-founder of the chain.
• Dos Toros cross-promotes its Instagram accounts with posts that refer to each other, but the restaurant chain doesn't want to appear overly promotional with its content. Pinto also serves as the "host" of Dos Toros' Burrito Time app that gives away 10 free burritos every day. Plus, an activation with a Pinto theme is being planned in Chicago.

Insight:

Dos Toros continues to take a quirky, offbeat approach to its mobile marketing — one that seems to be working. The burrito chain's decision two years ago to add Pinto the Burrito has capitalized on the fact that Instagram is a destination for social experiences, not branded ones. Posting humorous content featuring the quasi-mascot on one account helped the eatery draw more people to its company Instagram, as well as develop a greater affinity for the brand. Gaining 40,000 followers for its @DosToros account is a respectable number for a startup chain, considering the more established Chipotle has almost 600,000 followers, and Taco Bell has 1.2 million at its main account. (The Yum! Brands Mexican food chain also has accounts for other countries worldwide).

Last month, the Dos Toros also released its Burrito Time app that doesn't do anything else except give away free burritos at a random time throughout the day. The company's co-founders said they didn't like "super complicated apps" and reasoned that a simple one might be more popular, while also citing the influence of game show app HQ Trivia that gained a mass following with its streamed shows.

Funny content has the power to gain followers and go viral on social media. Fast food joint Wendy's has cultivated an audience of 2.8 million followers on Twitter with an account that gently mocks users and insults rival chains like McDonald's and Burger King. Last year, Wendy's and Wingstop engaged in a mock "rap battle" on Twitter that resulted in millions of impressions and thousands of retweets.