Chipotle is integrating brand values, not products, into its series.

As I write week in and week out about branded content, it is always extremely refreshing to see a brand putting the core tenets of it in one of their projects.

On February 17th, Chipotle launched a four-part series, “Farmed and Dangerous,” on Hulu.

What is very interesting is how Chipotle Chief Marketing Officer Mark Crumpacker describes the idea: “When we created ‘Farmed and Dangerous,’ it wasn’t about producing content that we could then be a part of. In fact, Chipotle isn’t really in the show.”

Soap operas were designed to promote products, this show is not the case. It was built to integrate Chipotle brand values and not to promote the brand and its restaurants.

“We’ve been thinking of ‘Farmed and Dangerous’ as more of a ‘values-integration’ than traditional ‘product-integration.’ The show is rooted in some of the problems we are working to solve or improve upon (the first season hits on the reliance of fossil fuels in large-scale farming), but it isn’t about us.” says Crumpacker.

Steve Hall did a good piece on the series and it is the article I am recommending this week, over at Contently. It will also allow you to watch the trailer for the series, which features one of the strong points of this series: exploding cows. Enjoy!

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