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A
What if the smartest marketing play is not to move forward, but to zoom out? Deloitte believes the most powerful move a CMO can make is to look beyond the next step and see the broader perspective. That's what the Deloitte CMO program is for. A place to gain fresh perspective and connect with leaders who've stood where you stand together. Deloitte will help you see the bigger picture so your next move isn't just fast, but right. Learn more about the CMO program@cmo.delloitte.com hi everyone, it's Jim. I'm here with Matt Spiegel, EVP of True Audience Growth Strategy at TransUnion. Matt, you've spent your career helping marketers understand people through data. And that's harder and more important now than ever. It really is, Jim. There's really just so much information out there and unfortunately it's often disconnected. Marketers typically see fragments, you know, maybe a purchase here or a click there. But what they really need is clarity. True full picture of who their customers are and ultimately how to reach them. Well, tell me how your solution strategy comes in and helps CMOs and their teams bring clarity to chaos. Well, Jim, we ultimately do that with a 360 view of the customer. And so it's about ultimately combining data, truly trusted data, identity resolution, which is a deep analytical problem, and measurement that actually helps understand performance. So ultimately we work hard to help marketers move faster, to deepen their insights and to ultimately make every dollar work harder. We believe strongly that when you truly understand your audience, you can build a real brand and real relationships with customers that last. Where were you when I was a cmo?
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B
I don't know how to answer that.
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Learn more@transunion.com clarity that's transunion.com clarity hi everyone, it's Jim. I have Matt Spiegel of TransUnion with me. Matt, I want to start with what do you love about your job? Yeah, it's a great question, Jim. You know what I love? The fact that I get to be out at events and conferences and working with clients to really think about how marketers solve problems that matter at scale. The job of a marketer is as challenging as ever and we get to do some interesting things to make their job easier. When you work with a client, where do you get the most satisfaction? You know what I think? Seeing ideas come to reality, we ultimately are an enable of great marketing. So we don't do creative, we don't do media planning. We provide the data the identity insights, the measurement tools that make great marketing possible. So when we get to see the end product, sometimes later, it's really cool to see. Well, super to have you here, super to be a partner. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you, Jim. So if you want to turn data into understanding and understanding into growth, visit transunion.com clarity hey everyone. Jim here. And I've got some exciting news. The CMO Podcast is now on YouTube. You can now watch our conversations, not just listen. See the expressions, the energy and the insights that happen when we sit down with the world's top marketing leaders. Head over to YouTube and subscribe to our channel, the CMO Podcast. So you never miss an episode and be part of the community. So please check it out, subscribe and join the conversation. What brand do you remember as a child making an impact on you? The first time you remember a brand being meaningful to you?
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B
I would probably say it has to be some cereal brands. Like I remember Tony the Tiger and I ate a lot of Frosted Flakes and I ate a lot of Froot Loops with Toucan Sam. So I remember those ads.
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A
But I would also reconnel Chipotle, by.
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B
The way, I know well, or I work for General Mills where there's Kellogg's brands. But thanks to my mom, we were at Kellogg's household. So I would say those brands, I saw them advertised all the time and they were, you know, they were influential for sure.
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Hi, I'm Jim Stengel. I've helped hundreds of major brands discover and activate their purpose. Because when a brand's purpose is clear, compelling and authentic, profit naturally follows. Each week, I welcome the CMOs, the chief marketing officers of your favorite brands, to speak to how their job is so much more than marketing. These leaders share their inspiration and challenges along with how they try to build a full, healthy and happy life in and out of the office. And it's that energy that reaches everyone they touch. And we're glad you're here to feel that energy and to learn from these remarkable leaders. So here we go. When you think about brands that have truly reshaped an entire category, few have done it as quickly and as effectively, effectively as Chipotle Mexican Grill, a brand that turned fast food into fast casual and purpose into a powerful growth engine. Chipotle's market cap today is nearly 60 billion dollars and its revenue is in the 11 billion dollar range. My guest today, Chris Brandt, is the president and chief Brand officer of Chipotle and one of the most respected marketers in our industry. Since joining the company in 2018, Chris has helped transform Chipotle into a purpose driven lifestyle brand, making it more visible, relevant and culturally resonant than ever before. Under his leadership, Chipotle has doubled in size, launched some of the industry's most creative campaigns and become one of the most admired brands in the world. Before joining Chipotle, Chris built his marketing foundation at three of the great brand academies, General Mills, Coca Cola and Yum Brands, where he helped launch legendary platforms like Taco Bell's Les Mas and Doritos Locos Tacos. Today, he brings that same mix of creative courage, data driven insight and cultural intuition to Chipotle, where purpose and performance go hand in hand. Here's my in person conversation with Chris Brandt recorded live at the A and A Masters of Marketing in Orlando, powered by TransUnion. Here we go. Chris, welcome to the CMO podcast here at the ANA Masters going How many times have you been at this meeting, this confab?
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B
I've been here probably, I think at least 10. I've been on the board for eight or nine years, maybe 10 years. So yeah, I've come every year. I really enjoy it. I think it's a chance to listen to other people talk about their brands, but it also gives you a chance to listen to them doing that, but thinking about how those lessons apply to your own brands. We were talking earlier about you need to reinvent your brand all the time and just that time to just sit and reflect on your brand and hear somebody else is a pretty precious resource. And so it's a great place to do it here at the Masters for sure.
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A
Yeah, it's reflection time, right?
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B
100%.
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A
So what about this year? What's the zeitgeist here at the ana?
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B
You know, I think it's certainly there's AI, right, and how it's transforming. I mean one of the first presentations they did was a gentleman on AI and it was great, but it just thought it's changing everything and changing everything in a really rapid way. But I think that the core tenets of what you have to do understand your consumer, know your brand, be an expert on those things. Trends will come and go. The fundamentals of marketing remain the same. Just the way you execute them will be a lot different, a lot faster, a lot more interesting, I think.
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A
Now, anyone you have met, I know we're kind of midweek right now. Anyone you've met this week or a conversation you had or presentation you sat in that made you go, uh, I need to take that back Home.
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B
I always like Mark's presentations.
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A
Mark Pritchard.
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B
Mark Pritchard from P and G? Yeah. I mean he, he, he went back to the fundamentals and how, I mean his, his premise at the beginning was brands don't have life cycles and we don't believe in those at P and G because there's always new ways to reinvent your brand. And I think that few brands need to really be repositioned. It's just a matter of telling your brand story in new and relevant ways on a constant basis. And I think that's what I've tried to do with every brand. We've had some brands I worked on back in my General Mills days, like Nature Valley, those were legacy brands that have been around a long time. Nature Valley went through a period where it was almost discontinued. And then you know, we figured out what the right way to position it was and it started soaring again. And so, you know, Chipotle is one of those brands that's been around for quite a while, but we got to find new and interesting ways to engage the consumer.
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A
How do you navigate a conference like this? Because you know, you're Chipotle people want to get on your agenda. If you walk down the hall of exhibitors, it's tough to get, get through that. How do you navigate all the interesting new people? You could meet some old friends. You want to see managing that balance. How many meetings do you take?
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B
I'm on the board and so there's a lot of activities with the board and the CMO Growth Council and those things. I meet a lot of people. It sounds bad, but I meet a lot of people in the bar. I mean if you hang around at the cocktail places later on there's a lot of informal conversations there. I think that it's friends of friends, you know, I mean you end up seeing a lot of people that you knew from one part of your life or not. I think it's fun to be the Chipotle guy because everybody's got a great story about Chipotle and how their kids eat it and they eat it and I just want em to eat it more frequently would be great. But I think that that's how you do it. And you know, I don't take a lot of meetings, I don't have time for a lot of them. But what we try to do is, and if you give a presentation, there's always a big line of people there ready to give you stuff. And we can, and I can send them to the right people on our Teams to vet those. So it's great. I mean, it's a great atmosphere. It's a lot of energy here, but it's a lot.
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A
Yeah. Now, this is a pillar event for you. You're here almost every year. Any other conferences? I get this question a lot. Which one should I go to?
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B
I don't go to very many anymore. I used to. The one that I keep hearing that I need to go to is possible. And so my son lives in Miami, so that certainly on the radar screen. But the ANA has different conferences. So I've spoken at one down in Carlsbad as well. That's about analytics. But I don't go to them that many times at this point in my career, it's a luxury I have that I can just call up people if I want to talk to them and they're happy to talk about Chipotle. So.
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A
Sure. Do you go to Cannes every year? Is there any other one?
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B
I haven't been to Cannes in the last few years. I think can about every two or three years is about the right cadence. There's only so many times I can go to Lagorete and Bayoli and survive, but I feel like it's not an every year event for us. It's every two, three years now.
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A
Do you do restaurant visits when you come to a meeting like this?
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B
Almost whenever I go, we try to hit a restaurant. There's a pretty new Chipotle just right here at the entrance to this facility. That's an amazing one. It's one of our best. I oversee our new restaurant development, so I'm always looking at our new restaurants and we've kind of updated our image a little bit inside. Still very much the heritage of Chipotle, but we just wanted it to have a little bit more natural look and feel that you could feel without putting words on the wall and all of those things. But just kind of our organic, fresh, natural nature. We wanted it to shine through a little bit because quite honestly, a lot of other concepts have copied what Chipotle has done. But I was just in Denver and I went to Chipotle number nine and it was the older tin and trim. And I'll tell you what, still looked terrific. It was kind of a strange layout because that was the old days and they were just taking space and redoing it. And actually, some of our best Chipotles are that you still get skylights where we do a lot of. We take old banks or banks that went out and we can kind of use that space differently. But that old restaurant, it still just felt really good about Chipotle, and it was just kind of nice to get back to the roots a little bit.
- [10:36]
A
Now, this isn't the first time you've been on the show, your company. It's the first time you've been on the show personally. But about five years ago, actually, during COVID Stephanie Perdue, your VP of brand, came on the show, and she was great. She was dynamite. She's still with you, which I think is wonderful.
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B
I've worked with Stephanie, I think, for a dozen years, because I was with her for my whole tenure at Taco Bell, and then almost my whole. I hired her on not too long after I started at Chipotle. And so, yeah, she's. She's a wonderful marketer, a wonderful person, and, you know, she's been able to put up with me for a dozen years, so that's pretty good, too.
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A
So what about her? What's her super strength? You've known her very well. You've seen her evolve and change and mature.
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B
Stephanie is. She can handle a lot of stuff, a lot of balls in the air, and she's super organized. She's very good at designing the right processes to get things done. That is not a strength that I have. One of my core tenets is have a sense of urgency to get things done. My team does not like it when I say this, but they'll ask, well, when do you want to buy? And I'll ask the question, hey, there's only two days a year that you can't get anything done. You know what those are? And people usually go, well, maybe Christmas or Thanksgiving. And I'm like, nope, it's yesterday or tomorrow, so you might as well do it today.
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A
That's a good one.
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B
And I think that sense of urgency that I have, it helps her to say, hey, let's put a process in place that can make this happen on the timelines that we need. So she's really good at that, but she also has great marketing instincts, and she's really good in meetings. She's a superstar. She really is. I've been lucky to work with her for so long.
- [12:12]
A
Well, when I talked to her five years ago, we talked about your restage was in full throttle. You're adapting the business for the pandemic. You're right in the middle of that. We talked a lot about the culture of creativity and authenticity at Chipotle, and she talked about you being such a great boss, and also Brian, who went on to Starbucks, but she talked about what a wonderful boss you are. So I'd like you to reflect on that a little bit. How are you a great boss? What could our audience learn? What makes you a great boss? And don't put that into ChatGPT. We talked about that before the show.
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B
I'd probably give you a better answer, but I think a couple things. So I don't ask people to do things that I wouldn't do myself. When I first became CMO at Taco Bell, I was the CMO of the people. And I think that that was. That was a really meaningful title for me to have. Maybe I'm less of the people now that I've been doing it for a long time, but I think people were rooting for me to have that job. And, you know, when I got it, I think that I just have always treated people really well. I've always been nice to everybody. It's a small business, it's a small industry. You can't treat people poorly. It'll come around to bite you. And even when you're in positions of influence, especially I've seen people treat agencies poorly. I'm like, just because you can, you know, you should not do that. You treat people as normal people. I think that I'm very clear about what I want to do and the things that we need to do and accomplish, and I think that helps people manage the work a little bit more. And. And I like to talk, but I also listen to what they say and we just try to solve those problems. And I kind of have three tenets that I ask people to do. I want people to be innovators, storytellers and collaborators. And I want you to be an innovator because innovation is what's going to get us out of any jam and it's going to keep us going. There's nothing like new innovation to bring new people in and remind existing people to come back. So how do we have a culture of creativity and ideas from a storyteller standpoint? Everybody likes a good storyteller. Chipotle's, for example, as a brand that has great stories to tell. How do we tell them a new and interesting ways? And then collaboration. So in the marketing department at Chipotle, I've interviewed every single person that falls under me, whether it's in culinary or in any aspect of marketing.
- [14:18]
A
Before you hired them?
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B
Before I hire them. And I give them what I call the conference room test. And really it was at the beginning. And so we kind of sets the tone. But if you are not willing if you're interviewing somebody and you wouldn't be willing to walk in a conference room with them at five o' clock on a Friday if you had to, we're not hiring them. Because when you're building a team, one bad apple may not ruin the whole bunch, but one bad apple does ruin the team. And so we just want all kinds of people and diverse opinions, but all of them need to be good people, and they need to be collaborators and work with everybody else, because no one person could get something all the way to market by themselves. We need that collaboration. And one of us is smart, but all of us are a lot smarter. And so I think that that's the other strength that I have is we build great teams and then we let them run. I purposely have had a smaller team at Chipotle than I've had in other places, because I want to give people robust jobs and I want them to get a chance to get stuff in the marketplace. And, you know, we want to test a lot. We want to put a lot of irons in the fire, and that's just been a key to our success. Not all of them will work, but that's okay. We'll start small. We'll pivot to what works. If something works, we'll pour the gas to it. If it doesn't, we'll pivot away, do something else. But I think that gives make that's fun for people. I'm not just pushing paper around. I'm actually getting projects done. And, boy, you really, when people get some responsibility, especially you hire good people and take their ideas and let them put their ideas in the marketplace. It's pretty motivating.
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A
How do you know someone's gonna fit in the culture the way you see it, to meet those storytelling, innovation, collaboration.
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B
I think that a lot of it is probably softer skills. By the time they get to me, they can do the job.
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A
They're pretty bad at it. Yeah.
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B
And it was interesting. When I first started doing it, there were only a couple people that I was like, no. And I remember I was telling the hiring manager, they're like, well, what do you think of this guy? I mean, he's got this and this and this. And I'm like, nope. And he said, well, why not? And I'm like, do you want to hang out with that guy? He's just. He wasn't very interested. He was very. He was very curt, and he just didn't seem like a good team player. And so I don't know that there's one thing that I can pinpoint. But I will say that we've been a pretty good judge so far. And, and I just said, hey, do you want to go in a conference room with that guy? 5 and he goes, I see what you mean. And so the cool thing about that is that's like maybe the only time I've had to do it. Now I say I'm going to interview everybody, but people have that mindset then in mind so they don't get to me anymore because they'll go, oof. I don't think we're going to like this person, even though they might be super skilled. And so I don't have to make that decision very often. I don't have to put the kibosh on them, which is great. So it lets the team make the decision, not just me.
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A
Yeah, no, it's a great criteria. I mean, in pause on it. Do you want to be with that person? You're going to be with them a lot.
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B
Going to be with them a lot. And you got to want to be with them. Because if you don't want if that person, for whatever reason, you don't want to be with them, you're not going to loop them in, you're not going to want to collaborate, you're not going to want to bring them in and it's going to bring the whole group down.
- [17:20]
A
We all want to stay ahead of the digital curve and iab, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, invites you to do just that at the 2026 IAB Annual Leadership Meeting in Palm Springs on February 1st through 3rd. If you're a qualified consumer, brand or agency leader, you can access free passes and travel vouchers. And for everyone else, you can take $500 off your ticket with code all caps almcmopod26 this is your chance to join a 3 day gathering of the industry's brightest minds and boldest voices shaping the year ahead. You'll hear agenda setting conversations, candid fireside chats and dynamic breakouts on the topics that matter most, from AI and commerce, media, measurement and addressability. This year's lineup includes everyone from Kevin Bacon and Bozema St John to Creator Remy Bader, along with leaders from Forbes, Major League Soccer, General Motors and Meta. Visit iab.comalm to learn more and check out the link in the show Notes to Register and receive $500 off your ticket now. You've been CMO for seven years and it's been quite a run. The company's doubled in size. Brand equity seems very strong but you are facing headwinds. Right, as every brand does at some point. So talk about how you are leading during times like this, right, when it's more important than ever to keep your team's confidence high, to reinforce all those things you talked about. Innovation, storytelling, collaboration. So just talk about that.
- [18:52]
B
Look, I think that we've created a culture that wants to win and that is innovative, that wants to tell stories and wants collaboration. I will say, and you covered it in your book a long time ago about the brand purpose. And when all else fails, lean on that brand purpose. You know, we've had some trials and tribulations for sure on Chipotle, not the least of which was Covid and transforming the business from 100% in restaurant to now. We're, you know, during COVID we were 78% digital. Now we're about 35% digital. And the different stresses and demands of the Chipotle didn't do ltos or innovation. That's been a big piece. We've really expanded the footprint. I mean, I think there were a little over 2,000 restaurants when we started. We're getting close to open our 4,000th restaurant now. But keeping those teams focused on the task. And look, I think at Chipotle, this is the way people should eat. And so this brand purpose we have of cultivate a better world. I tell our team all the time, look, real food is better. It's better for you as a person, it's better for people in general, and it's better for the planet. And we're the good guys, so we're supposed to win. So we better go win. And there's a lot of challenges. There's macro pressures. People are not eating out as much. Everybody's battling for a smaller pie of transactions. There's a lot of more price pointed advertising, which isn't Chipotle's jam. We're kind of storytellers. Yeah, I think values what you get for what you pay. And for Chipotle, there's a quality element to that. People are chasing dollars. Just the affordability is the absolute price point a little bit. So we got to reinforce. We had to find new ways. It's kind of what we talked about at the beginning, new ways to reinforce our value proposition. But I think the team stays motivated because we like to win. We've been winning, and, boy, that brand purpose is a powerful driver of. We're supposed to win, so we need to go do it.
- [20:37]
A
Yeah. Yeah. What's going on with the category? Is it economic?
- [20:40]
B
Is it it's very macro. So, you know, we, we sit what we call fast casual. So there's casual dining places like the Chili's and Applebee's, there's fast casual in the middle, and then there's qsr, which is the drive through kind of places. And I think for the last seven plus years, we've. Fast casual has benefited because we're offering amazing quality food at a pretty reasonable price. And so we were really kind of stealing from casual dining. We were stealing from QSR as people traded up and traded down respectively. And so. But boy, with the price pointed ads and some of the moves, there's a lot of people are kind of middling and we're not, I mean, we're not doing as well as we'd like, but we're doing okay and better than most. But there's a few big winners with price pointed ads. And so, I mean, that's kind of been the struggle. So I think fast casual is kind of been bleeding a little bit. Where we were getting the benefit of trade down and trade up, now they're kind of stealing it back from us. But we think it's a temporary thing. We still love our value proposition. I think Chipotle at its core is craveable food. You feel good about eating and think how rare that is in your life because most things that taste good, you don't feel good about. Most things you feel good about don't taste that good. We've got a really unique spot there that creates a great emotional connection for people. And it's nice when maybe the numbers aren't coming what you want, but you walk around a place like this and go, I just ate there yesterday or my kids eat there all the time. I'm like, okay, people are still going. It's good.
- [22:00]
A
Yeah, yeah. How has your role changed the most in the seven years you've been here?
- [22:04]
B
That's an interesting question. At the beginning, we had to establish everything, so we were starting from scratch. The brand was coming off some food safety issues. We had to fundamentally put together. What's our story going to be. I didn't know how good Chipotle was. I was always a big fan and when I walked in, I just didn't know how good it was until I got there. And then I. All of our food with integrity principles and our animal welfare. We're the only restaurant that's gotten an A plus in animal welfare. We spend half a billion dollars more on our ingredients to make sure they're responsibly raised versus Commodity ingredients. We have a lot of principles. We don't have any artificial flavors, colors, preservatives. We don't have any freezers in the restaurant. We don't have any can openers. You know, it's all fresh. And so we're different. And I didn't really appreciate how different because we're a real restaurant. Every Chipotle is a real restaurant. A lot of places are just reheating food. So how do we tell those stories in new and interesting ways? How do we be relevant with young people? We embraced all kinds of different media. So I think in the first few years, man, we were just establishing what Chipotle is about and really understanding the brand and tapping into those things. Now we have a lot more talented people at the company. They do a lot of that. They bring a lot of ideas. I think in social media, we're not just one of the best restaurant brands, we're one of the best brands in social. And that's a tribute to the team and for me, listening to them and, you know, we've learned a lot about this brand and over time, so. And then I've taken on development. So we didn't have new restaurant development when I first started, so I took that on. That's been an education for me. Like, those people know a lot more about real estate than I do. But I think learning to manage where I'm not the expert in that, but here's. Here's where I think we can help. And so we've hired some good people. They can handle a lot more of the details. And I can just sort of be a little bit of an orchestra conductor around things and, you know, maybe the strategy and thought leader more than the doer that I was at the beginning.
- [23:56]
A
What are your priorities now? Personal priorities? What are you spending your time on?
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B
So I think figuring out another way, other ways to talk about the, the. The real fresh food and quality food of this brand. We've had a lot of success with our employees, advertising and, you know, that tell you, that insight was born out of when I got there. First thing you do at Chipotle is you spend some time in the restaurant, learning the restaurant operation. That's where all the action happens. And I remember when I first started in 2018 was my. And I went into the restaurant and I saw our morning prep. So people were coming in at six o' clock in the morning and they start prepping the food for lunch, right? Because it takes four or five hours, multiple people to do it. It's a team. And, you know, we're bringing in whole avocados, we're bringing in whole onions. It's fresh chicken that's brought in, never frozen. And it was more like a farmer's market in there than any restaurant I'd ever seen. And I literally. I stepped out and I called our agency at the time, still was still with Venable, and I said, have you guys ever done morning prep? And they're like, no. And so I said, how about you do it next week? And so we set them up in San Francisco and they did it. And that was where the behind the Foil ad came from. Because I'm like, we gotta show our employees are heroes for doing this. And they were so proud and they were so skilled. And I wanted to make them the stars because they're the. They're. They're the stars of the show. And so we sent out a message from me and the COO at the time, Scott Boatwright, who's now the CEO. And we asked people, I said, make me a short video that tells me everything that you wish people knew about Chipotle, but they don't. And the folks submitted them. We got like 200 videos they didn't know at the time, but we used those for our casting tapes. And so we brought real employees. All of our employees are not paid actors. They're real employees in. And we just started filming them. And we hired a gentleman by the name of Errol Morris, who was famous for documentaries and his interview style. And that's his voice you hear on there. He believes real is beautiful, and so do we. And so it was a great match. And that really launched those. And I think one of the challenges we've had is the employees see these ads, and so they try to feed us sometimes what we want them to say or what they think we want them to say, versus being honest and genuine. And I think that was really the difference because they could talk about things in a really organic and authentic way that if we use VO or some other technique, it wouldn't have been nearly as impactful. Also, our ads, we really revamped the whole media plan. And so we started showing up in sports a lot more. And our ads were a little bit more earnest and quiet than your typical competitor type ads. And so that really broke through. And I think that, you know, we've been running that campaign on and off with other things sprinkled in there for seven or so years. But going back to the inside of that restaurant looks more like a farmer's market than any place. And remember, we're coming off food safety crisis. We don't have anything to hide. Let's just show people what we do and they will love it. And so based on that insight, we've just been as transparent and authentic as we can. Even when it goes to hiring influencers, bringing people in, bringing them in the back of the house, showing them what we do. Some of our best posts we've done are employees who film themselves slicing and dicing in the back. With real skills, people go, wow, I can't believe they do that. That's been a big piece of the pie and really effective. Even as we've added more digital and done all those things and transformed the. Just going back to the fundamentals of we're a real restaurant.
- [27:29]
A
I mean, you're one of the few brands that I think has a differentiating purpose that is so real, so right, so important. And you have conviction about it, which you've just expressed, but you've stayed true to that. I was looking back on your history. I mean, the Cultivating a Better World was 2012. Right. Your Food with Integrity platform 2009, you know that famous Back to the Start video.
- [27:53]
B
We didn't do that one, but I think it's the single best piece of creative ever in the restaurant space. And we were really, we can't remember, it must have been like 2020, 2021 that we did a sequel to it where we used the same stop motion animation and did all that. Today you'd probably use AI to simulate it, but. And we use the same people who did it. And we, we did a second one we called. We did A Future Begins. Yeah, where we took. There was a baby at the end of Back to the Start. We made it for a Future Begins. It starts with that person going. And we told real farmer stories and those were spawned. So we said, hey, we want to do a sequel. What's the story going to be? So we were trying to film content with a lot of the farmers. So as Chipotle has grown up over the years, one of the most challenging things for us is finding unadulterated food and contacting companies who have contacts with farmers that want to do it the right way with humane animal practices and free from antibiotics and all that bad stuff. So we started meeting some of these real farmers and we went out to Iowa and we started talking to these farmers and I didn't realize how emotional it was going to be. So these were family farms. They were raising hogs for, for our carnitas and those Things and just how hard it is to be a farmer. And you know, the average age of a farmer in America is something like 60 years old. And it's not a job, it's a calling. And this woman was telling us a story where she goes, I grew up on the hog farm, but I left, I went into the city and my D got a hip injury. And he said, I can't do this anymore. I'm going to have to sell the farm. And she goes, you can't do that. That's our family legacy. And so she left her job in the city, moved back to the hog farm. Really didn't know that much about hog farming, but figured out how to do it. And the trials and tribulation of her. That's the story of a future begins that. Stephanie and I basically said, hey, let's just tell this story. This would be interesting that the kid goes off, comes back to the farm, he adopts new practices and more modern practices that helps the family farm survive. That's where it came from. You know, again, grounded in that insight of man farming's hard, right?
- [30:10]
A
Everyone seems to be chasing the next big thing. The fastest answer, the quickest win. But great CMOs believe the real power isn't in the speed. It's in stepping back to see the bigger picture. That's why everything Deloitte does in their CMO program, from their industry leading capabilities to their connected network of CMOs, is designed to help you zoom out and gain fresh perspective. Deloitte will help you see the bigger picture together. Learn more about the CMO program@cmo.delloitte.com I want to drill down a little bit on this. You've had consistency in your purpose, but lots of creativity and bringing it to life, that's hard to do. So what's your counsel? How do you lead a culture to stay grounded in the purpose? The first thing you said when I said, how are you dealing with the headwinds? Was ground ourselves in the purpose, but set the expectation. We got to innovate, got to change, but the purpose doesn't change. What do you do to reinforce that? How do you lead a culture like that? Because that's pretty magical.
- [31:14]
B
Yeah. I think you want to be clear about the things that are. You can't violate. I mean, and we have a good sense. You have to have a good sense of the tone of your brand and what it is. And so the tone of Chipotle's brand got really defensive over food safety and got really controlling about it. And so by the time we went look, our food safety was solid, and food safety was elevated to an absolute science in the 2015, 2016 era. So we don't have those kind of issues anymore. But there was still a lot of latent love for that brand because it's craveable food. You feel good about eating. And so how do we tap into that? And, you know, we kind of have to acknowledge a little bit that this brand isn't just owned by us. It's owned by everybody. And there's a lot of. And we wanted to be cool, and we wanted to be relevant. So, you know, we set out with Chipotle in 2018. It's one of our key tenets of the brand. That's that there's five things we want to do, improve operations, those things. But one is make the brand more visible, more relevant, and more loved. And so we look to embrace people's brand love. And there are a lot of people. I mean, I love. You can imagine, I love Chipotle. I eat it multiple times a week. But there are people who express their brand love in ways that I find phenomenal. Mikel Williams from the Knicks has said he's eaten it every day for 10 years, God bless him. But I think that we knew we had to be relevant with people in their 20s. That's because people ask, well, who's your consumer target? Well, we have 2 million people now a day that come into Chipotle. And so we have people from, you know, three years old to 80 plus. Right. But we want to be relevant people in their 20s, because why? Because people in their 20s define what's cool in culture, whether it's in sports or music or whatever. And so if we're always relevant with them, we'll never go out of style. And the cool thing about people in their 20s is whether you're in your 40s or 50s or whether you're in your teens, you want to be in your 20s. And so it kind of is a nice battleground for us. And we also, again, I'll go back to what I said before. Our brand is different. We want to show up in different ways. So that gives us a freedom to experiment. How do we bring new people into the fold? And so we did collaborations with cosmetics companies like Elf. We did one Lipotle. So the insight was, hey, your lipstick rubs off on the burrito. How do we do a lip stain with a company that has a similar philosophy about testing and everything that we do? How do we do those things? And so all Of a sudden, now our brand is showing up in girls cosmetics and, you know, young ladies cosmetics and things as a place. Wow, what other food brand can be there? And you know, we, we did a partnership in Formula one when it was certainly it still is on the rise, but we did that. What other restaurant brand shows up there? We were at the Rose Parade because the Rose Parade is all natural ingredients. Hey, we're all natural ingredients. Let's do that. So we just created that culture of experimentation. And I like to be first. So it's like, how do we do something where we're first? And what are these other partnerships? I'm like, our video gaming. When I came there in 2018, Fortnite was single handedly lowering the GPA of every young male in America. And I'm like, how do I get a piece of this? And so a friend of mine worked in media, called me and said, hey, I'm working with this gaming company. They got three guys up here in Manhattan beach that are playing. They're three of the top 15 players in Fortnite. They eat chipotle three times a week. Are you interested? And we're like, yeah, we're interested. Again, we start small on things and then we'll pour the gas to what works and we'll pivot to what doesn't. And I think when we started out want to make sure we show up right in the culture. And we wanted to just didn't want to parade around these three guys as splashy. We wanted to feel authentic that no, this is what they do already. We don't pay anybody to extol the virtues of the brand who already isn't a brand fan. And I will tell you the other part is, so we've been on Roadblocks, we're at the Rose Parade, we're at all these different places. But the one tenet that the team talks about that I say all the time is great. Well, don't be lame because you only get one chance to make a first impression. So if we're going to show up with Head and Shoulders, if we're going to show up with right. If we're going to show up with Elf, or we're going to show up with Lapole, or we're going to show up in gaming or we're going to show up in sports, don't be lame. Make sure you understand that platform and we do it the right way. And I remember the team when we first did our Roblox execution, We've created a bit of a chipotle World in Roblox. And I remember when they first pitched me the idea, they said, yeah, we're going to create this branded world inside of Roblox, and it's going to be awesome. And I'm like, well, the potential for it to suck is really high, because when brands start going on other platforms and creating their own worlds, it could be bad. And I'm like, I don't care how much time and energy and even money we spent on this. If it's lame, we will not launch. And the team said that was always in our head, that, don't be lame, don't be lame. And you know what? They created a great world that we've built on multiple times now. But that legacy of, hey, have a sense of urgency, let's experiment, but don't be lame kind of works.
- [36:08]
A
And you're doing this with a small group.
- [36:10]
B
Pretty small group. Yeah.
- [36:12]
A
And that's pretty amazing. That's pretty amazing. So it's just that their core work, they're seen as constantly innovate, do stuff that isn't lame.
- [36:19]
B
We hired all of those people. You know, I talked about the conference room test, but we hired all of them for, I want ideas, because ideas help you differentiate, ideas help you separate, ideas help you win. There's no substitute for creativity, and we just want people who can generate ideas. And we always talk about, in social media, we're looking for that intersection of Chipotle and culture. And we just. We found it recently. So I didn't know this, so they brought me the idea of Friday the 13th is a big day in the tattoo community. And we had back in 2019, Adam Levine was performing at the super bowl and he took off his shirt and somebody posted Adam Levine's tatted up like a Chipotle bag. Because our Chipotle bags have graphics and everything else. And he was a pretty good poster child for that. And so that kind of went viral at the Super Bowl. So we've had this legacy of tattooed like a Chipotle bag. And so we did a one hour, buy one, get one for people who had a tattoo. It was one of our most successful promos we've ever done. They lit up the restaurant. People were very appreciative, and, man, did it work well.
- [37:22]
A
Yeah.
- [37:23]
B
So I think finding those ideas and when somebody brings you an idea like that and they get to execute it, that's pretty rare. There's not a lot of bureaucracy. That's the other beauty is, you know, when we're doing something on the brand Me and Stephanie pretty much decide. And there's not a lot of red tape. And it's just, how do we get it out there? How do we get out there quickly and effectively? And don't be lame.
- [37:44]
A
Now, your career path, right, it's almost destined to bring you to this role. You had three academy companies, General Mills, Coca Cola, Yum Brands. So pretty amazing background. So speak about that for a moment. I mean, how did that shape you to be the kind of leader you are right now that's talking so confidently about this brand that you're watching over?
- [38:01]
B
I started out in finance. So when I was an econ major in college, I worked in banking. And then I went to work for an equity investment company, and we did. I had to get kind of into marketing for them for financial services. And I thought everybody at that company, besides maybe me and one other person, had an mba. So I feel like, okay, you know, do I have to go back and get an M. I should go back and get an mba. And so when I went back to business school at ucla, I really wanted to see what this brand management thing was, because I wanted to market a physical product. I thought that would be cool. And so I ended up getting a job out of business school at General Mills. So I went to General Mills. General Mills really was a great foundation in brand management and brand architecture. And all those things you learn at General Mills or you learn at P and G is very much General Mills. And you know what? That was a purposeful decision. I wanted to go to P and G or General Mills and have somebody teach me something. Because when I got out of even college, I went to work for a bank because they had a training program. And I'm like, well, they'll teach me how to analyze financial statements, which has been really helpful for me my whole career. I mean, I don't. And in a lot of ways, I think marketing and all of the numbers and performance and marketing mix models and everything sort of pushed back to my background of the finances and all that stuff. And so General Mills taught me a lot about that. I worked on some great brands there. I worked on cereal. I worked on Nature Valley was kind of a big moment. I was a brand manager. It was my first. My second brand manager job, I guess, was Nature Valley. What a gem to have. I had a great boss named Beth Brady, and she kind of let me run. And that really job gave me the confidence that I can do this brand management stuff. I might. I might be good at this. And then I worked various jobs I left there and I went to Odwalla. Brand called. Odwalla was a premium juice and bars brand. It was owned by Coke. It was not in Atlanta, was down in Houston. That brand looked like a lot like Nature Valley, but kind of a different category a little bit. And so kind of did that. And then. And after about a dozen years in cpg, I'm like, I think I got this. And then Taco Bell called. And at that point, we loved living down in Texas, but I felt like I had to move. And so we went to Southern California, worked with Taco Bell, Taco Bell, and yum. Taught me how to be a marketer. I think I got the brand management education at General Mills and some maybe been on Owla, but I got a marketing education of promos. And retail's fast and so promos. And, you know, I worked on brands that had a lot of advertising presence in General Mills, but they were three or four ads a year. Man, we might have made 25 ads a year. So I learned from those folks how to do ads, how to do effective ads, how to manage retail, how to manage the calendar, how to move quickly. And so that was a big. That really, I think between those two things really set me up to succeed at Chipotle for sure.
- [40:47]
A
In terms of mentors along the way, can you think of one or two, you know, super influential ones?
- [40:52]
B
Well, Beth Brady was one I mentioned because she. She gave me the confidence and the trust to kind of go. And I think, you know, I kind of model my management style and hers, like, hey, give people some challenges. Let them go. Brian Nichol has been a great partner. You know, we've turned around Taco Bell. We've definitely turned around Chipotle. And so he's. He was a good sounding board and, you know, a good guy, good friend. Yeah. So I would say those people are probably the most influential, but, boy, there's been a lot of people. And I would. I'd have to say Stephanie. I mean, you know, she's worked for me, but she. She works alongside me. And, you know, she's a great. We covered a lot of how great she is, but she certainly. I've learned a lot from her. Hey, everybody, this is Andrea Sullivan, the CEO of Vive, and we produce the CMO podcast and are so excited to have partnered with Jim Stengel for so many years. Wanted to tell you a little bit about something that could be right for you. Vive is a program for entrepreneurs and business leaders who want to get more out of their life and become their best and happiest selves, both personally and professionally. We have a 12 month program that allows people to meet up with some of the best business leaders out there and additionally experts in the wellness sector so that you can learn how to nurture yourself. So we teach things around sleep optimization, meditation, all those good things as well as. Please reach out to us at Podcastsive Co to get more information. That's P O D C A S T S at Vyve Co. Thanks for listening to the CMO podcast and hope to talk to you more about Vibe.
- [42:37]
A
You've worked longer at this brand and this company than anyone in your career. Did you imagine that coming in? No.
- [42:43]
B
I mean, you know, being a CMO is a risky proposition. I mean, I say I don't buy green bananas, you never know what could happen, right? But I thought honestly that my Taco Bell job, my Taco Bell years, would be the best job I ever had. And Manchipotle is even better than that. And so I got a note from the New York Times and they wanted me to speak on some panel. They said, because you're one of the longest tenured CMOS in the Fortune 500. And I just thought, wow. I mean, it's gone by fast. Everybody says that, but it's true. But again, I get to work with my friends on a brand I believe in, in a great place. So there you go.
- [43:19]
A
What do you hope your legacy will be?
- [43:20]
B
I hope it's with the people, right, that they learned some stuff from me, that they had a good time doing it and they want to give back to other people. I hope that's a big legacy. But I'm proud of the legacy we left at even at Taco Bell, where we launched Liv Moss, we launched Doritos Locos Tacos, that the innovation pipeline and stuff we left there, they're still kind of mining some of that stuff today and they've done a great job with the brand since we left. And then look, Chipotle, I think that mission of we're bringing better food to more people and that's a pretty heady thing. So, you know, whether they, I remember it or not, I'm not that concerned. But those brands live on forever and I hope they do. And it's a pretty awesome thing to say. You worked on them.
- [43:59]
A
We're going to move to the creative brief and I'm going to bring our small audience into this in a moment.
- [44:02]
B
Oh great.
- [44:03]
A
We have a small live audience here. But the first question is, what brand do you remember as a child making an impact on you. The first time you remember brand being meaningful to you.
- [44:11]
B
I would probably say it has to be some cereal brands. Like, I remember Tony the Tiger, and I ate a lot of Frosted Flakes and I ate a lot of Froot Loops with Toucan Sam. So I remember those ads. But I would also.
- [44:22]
A
I think you're now Chipotle, by the way.
- [44:24]
B
I know well. Or I work for General Mills where there's Kellogg's brands. But thanks to my mom, we were at Kellogg's household. So I. I would say those brands, I saw them advertised all the time, and they were, you know, they were influential for sure.
- [44:35]
A
What's the campaign or initiative? And you've worked on so many in your career. The one that is you remember being most meaningful to you.
- [44:41]
B
I would say the stuff that we've done. I think I'm back to the start, too. We talked a little bit about that. Did another spot called Human Nature that really juxtaposed what we do and what others do. But as we really are trying to partner with nature and not fight nature and what we grow and how we do it. We did was a pure brand ad, and it really worked for us. And so. And I'd also say behind the foil because we made the people that work in those restaurants every day. We made those people heroes and celebrities of their own right in their towns. And that's pretty cool, too.
- [45:14]
A
Yeah. I don't know why more brands don't do that. I mean, really celebrate the people in the company.
- [45:19]
B
They're on the front line every day. And those are hard jobs. I mean, when I was working in the restaurant, just standing up for eight hours a day is no mean feat. And the culinary skills that they have and the dedication, we're lucky. There's so many people have transformed their lives at Chipotle. And you don't have to have a formal education. You can. We have. The stories are legion. And we have a few of our regional vice presidents. So they're. They're the guys who purported the coo. They started in the restaurant. It's just amazing stories. And they're proud of what they do and what they've accomplished. And, man, they really, you know, they have responsibility for billions of dollars. It's pretty amazing.
- [45:57]
A
Let's go to our small audience here, and I want to ask you something that may have inspired you from the discussion we've been having or a question you have for Chris.
- [46:06]
B
Yeah. So my name is Mark Ivanov. So a few nights Ago or maybe weeks ago, we had a Chipotle family night, right. And red chimichurri was what we had. Right. So it started a conversation of who likes it, who doesn't. It was three to one, so three of us liked it. Did you just boot the other person out of the family? Unfortunately, it's my wife, so we really can't do that. But menu innovation, right, how important is that for maintaining the brand recognition, brand growth? And then how do you balance it? Right. Not to do it too often. Yeah, it's a great question and critical. And I will tell you that Chipotle really hadn't done any kind of ltos, mostly protein. Ltos is what we do. So think of the most successful one we've ever had is one we just did on Chipotle Honey Chicken. There's nothing like doing an LTO on a protein that brings new people into the brand and then reactivates your existing people to come more. And so the balance, though, is how do you make it work operationally? Because our operations of all of that morning prep and everything are quite complex and you have to train all these people and all these restaurants, and it's harder than it is at a lot of places that are just reheating stuff or this comes frozen. Right. So, good example is we launched Quesadilla. The quesadilla is only available digitally because it slows the line down inside the restaurant too much. So we tested it in both places and the operators were out there, were like, yeah, we can do it in the restaurant. We're like, no, it slows it down and we can't slow that line down. It needs to go fast. So we're balancing a great marketing idea that doesn't work operationally is a really bad idea for the place. So we have a stage gate process that we vet all these things and I think we're going to have to do more innovation. And the sauce innovation is a good one because it's low cost, it's approachable for people, it's very affordable and it really can change the experience that you have at Chipotle. So that will continue to be important for us. And as we get through this macro environment, you're going to see us do more innovation. And the good news is we've got a kind of a good formula for vetting it and the field is like, let's go.
- [48:07]
A
One more question. My name is adi adiosin. I'm TransUnion. I love this notion of urgency. The idea of when the two worst days to do something, I think what you said, which was, you know, yesterday or tomorrow. So how do you balance, when you think about that, how do you balance that with making sure that, you know, you've got the precision in what you want, right. In terms of making sure that actually the outcome really meets the standard that you wanted to see.
- [48:35]
B
Great question. Again, I mentioned I went to UCLA business school, so can't go through a whole interview without a John Wooden quote, right? And he had one of my favorite quotes of all time is be quick but don't hurry.
- [48:44]
A
Great.
- [48:45]
B
And I think that's what we have to do. It's like, we can't again, we need to do the things and vet the things to our stage gate process that keeps us honest and makes sure that everyone's on board. But we can do that in an expedited manner and have a sense of urgency about it. But we can be quick, but we can't rush. It's when we rush, we'll get in trouble if we start skipping steps or become complacent about the three grains of consumer the financials and the operator. As long as those folks are on board, we'll win. It may take a little bit more time than we like, but it'll still be faster because we have that sense of urgency. So that's how we balance it. Right. And you get a good person like Stephanie, who's good on process. She tempers my enthusiasm. Right. For sometimes. For getting things to market really quickly.
- [49:28]
A
So, Chris, we'll wrap with two questions. First one, who's been the most inspiring person in your life?
- [49:33]
B
I would say my wife. I mean, my wife has been. I got to marry my best friend and, you know, she has really stood by me through everything and we moved around a lot. Like we. There's a cost to that. Right. And I would not have been nearly as successful without her. And so everything we do, I mean, I enjoy spending time with her. We see so many couples have trouble. We do not have any. We've certainly had our ups and downs, but she's my rock and she's a great supporter. And I would not have been half as successful, half as successful as I have been without her.
- [50:07]
A
Do you talk business with her?
- [50:08]
B
She does, but she gives me, you know, everybody's a marketer, so you get a lot of feedback. And so I can always tell when I'm going to get some marketing feedback because she goes, well, I know I might not be the target, but this is what I'm saying. And so, yeah, there's so there's a lot of. And you know, I will also say she's very candid. And you know, you might think you're special in some cause you're standing up on some stage. Don't think you're special here. You know, you need to. Still grounding?
- [50:32]
A
Yeah.
- [50:32]
B
Yeah. But she, she's very smart and she managed, you know, she manages the whole household. And you know, that has freed me up to just focus on, you know, what I'm good at.
- [50:40]
A
Now we're here at the Ana. Bob Liodes, the CEO finishes every presentation with a question to the speaker. What's your advice to the audience to do when they return to work? So I'm going to turn it to you. What's your advice to the audience based on the conversation we've had about building a great brand? What's your advice to them when they return to work?
- [50:56]
B
Look, you can be bombarded with all of the changes and things, and I would tell you to embrace change. Right. There was a quote in the AI presentation today from Winston Churchill. He was a quote machine. But it said, if you don't take change by the hand, it's going to grab you by the throat. And I think that. But there's another one he has to improve is to change. To be perfect is to change. Often people, when confronted with change tend to focus on what they might lose as opposed to what they might gain. And I think that especially if you're a brand that's not doing well, hey, this is your chance to really change things. And that's why I like innovation so much. It's your chance to create the future. Let's change this. A trend is not fate. You can change your future. And I think when you embrace the parts of change, you think about the changes that you've had that have than good. Focus on the good parts and the positives and not the negative part of change that makes you uncomfortable, but your brain, look, it's hardwired to resist change because in the old world you could. That was dangerous, but it's not that dangerous now. What's dangerous now is not adapting and embracing change. So I'd say embrace change and have a sense of urgency.
- [52:05]
A
Thanks, Chris.
- [52:06]
B
Thanks for having me. Appreciate you. My gosh.
- [52:08]
A
Yes. That was my conversation with Chris Brandt. Three takeaways from this one for your business brand in life. First, one. Fundamentals outlast trends. Chris sees AI and technology transforming the marketing landscape. But the rules of great brand building haven't changed his philosophy. Stay anchored in the fundamentals while reinventing how you express them. Trends will come and go, he says. The fundamentals remain the same. Brands don't have life cycles, you just keep reinventing how you tell the story. Great teams run on trust, speed, and humanity. Chris Leadership Playbook centers on building teams that move fast and treat people well. If you wouldn't want to be stuck with them at a conference room at 5 o' clock on a Friday, we're not hiring them, he says. He leads by example, never asking anyone to do something he wouldn't do himself. And he drives a culture of urgency balanced with care. His his mantra, inspired by John Wooden, is be quick, but don't hurry. Third takeaway Authenticity is the ultimate differentiator. From real employees in ads to brand experiments in gaming, cosmetics and sports, Chipotle only shows up where it can be authentic. The internal rallying cry don't be lame. For Chris, creativity is only powerful when it feels real and when every move reinforces the brand's purpose of cultivating a better world. That's it for this week's episode of the CMO Podcast. As always, I would be grateful if you shared our show with your friends, along with subscribing and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. The CMO Podcast is a Vive Original production. The views and opinions expressed by podcast speakers and guests are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of our sponsors or its personnel. Nor do our sponsors advocate or endorse any individuals or entities featured on the episodes.