It may as well have started as just another ad, but viewers have walked away from Chipotle's web/mobile app game video introduction forever changes (and a bit teary eyed).
The popular burrito chain has just recently released a new mobile game, called "The Scarecrow," (for all your iDevices and whatnot) aiming to educate the public about proper food choices and food issues. The game's introduction video (which has since launched a massive onset depression) was released at the same time of the game, set to Fiona Apple singing her rendition of "Pure Imagination" from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory."
Fiona Apple's deep and haunting vocals set the dark, ominous mood of the video, with a scarecrow-the game's main character- set to work in a behemoth food corporation slash company, Crow Foods. the factory is reminiscent of the sinister reports we hear about the commercial food industry, with huge vats of liquid labelled chicken and beef spewing out equally sized packets of 100% beef-ish product. The scarecrow grows increasingly sadder as the video progresses, after witnessing chickens being injected to grow faster, and cows (oh those cows, those poor unfortunate creatures with their huge round eyes pleading for deliverance) imprisoned in the dark, suspended in harnesses that restrict all movement, with tubes sucking out all beefy essence. The combination of gut-walloping truth in depicted in such beautiful animation and Apple's deep, sonorous vocals sets the bleak, hopeless landscape in which people seem content enough to live in, until the scarecrow finally just flips the table after finding a freshly grown vegetable in his farm, setting up a food stall wedged right between the big, nasty food establishments.
The ad is simple: Scarecrow equals Good Guy Chipotle with its wholesome food, and the frightening Crow Foods is-well, everybody else in the food industry. But viewers will be surprised at the lack of visible branding, with Chipotle hardly making its presence known save for a brief flash at the very end of the video. The animated short just leaves you with basic archetypes to root for, and against.
Clever.
While the gaming itself is reportedly average, (help the scarecrow free animals, etc) it makes up for it with beautiful visuals and simple gameplay...and the promise of a free burrito if you win enough levels, in which case, SCORE. Chipotle owes us for that untimely bout of negative emotion.
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