Stop Searching for the Next Chipotle

Photo Credits: Ken Wolter / Shutterstock.com

I think a lot about innovation. I think a lot about coming up with an amazing new idea that could turn into the next big thing. We all do. The problem with the next big thing is that it only comes once in a billion. How many great new concepts enter your life each year? One? Two? The reality is that same wins most of the marathons and new, in the majority of situations, fails to complete the sprint. When you look at Chipotle as a brand – it wasn’t a new idea. Subway had perfected the down the line concept, Mexican concepts had ruled the cooking style, and many counter brands mastered the art of customization and consumer transparency. What Chipotle did was take a bunch of things that work and put them all together in a model and duplicate it the exact same way over and over again. Ever time I see an article come through my email about the hunt for the next Chipotle, I can’t help but think that this is what the gold rush must have felt like. Someone finds gold and everyone else thinks it’s easy to do it. It’s not. Gold only happens once in every 100 lifetimes. Same is the real secret. When something works, duplicate it. Isn’t that what chains are and franchising does anyway? With No Limit Agency*, all I did was create a tweak on same (a PR firm) and, initially, found a way to differentiate my same through a tool I didn’t create, just understood (Social Media). Collectively, No Limit Agency became the next Chipotle – another entrepreneurial company built around the beauty of many things that were already proven to work. With 1851, it’s the same. If you are trying to create the next Chipotle, perhaps you are chasing the wrong gold. If you run an existing brand that has fallen into challenging times, perhaps reinvention isn’t what you need – it’s just another piece of the same. Take the self-serve frozen yogurt explosion that started five years ago. Although each didn’t feature much difference, they got hot – and got hot fast. Had the big boys – those that already owned ice cream or yogurt – embraced self-serve, they could have protected their brands and swallowed up the competition by outspending them on marketing and making more net profit through strong supply chains. They didn’t want to change. They didn’t want to add what was working. They didn’t want to embrace the consumer’s desire to own customization. And now, they are no longer great concepts or brands. The pizza segment embraces real time, transparent customization. Why? The consumers showed they loved it. I can’t wait for the burger industry to redefine itself by using the same method– true, down the line burgers, fries and shakes. It is possible. Creativity is great in helping differentiate one brand from the next, but why try to change something if it already works? Creativity can come in branding, but foundationally, perhaps the next Chipotle is a simple mixture of a few things that are already working.