What You Can Learn From Free Burritos

Last week Manchester’s newest burrito chain Chilango opened up its restaurant on Oxford Street to a queue of hundreds of people, predominantly students, who were waiting for one thing and one thing only: free burritos.

The Manchester Evening News had stirred excitement with the promise of free burritos all day and, as poor students coming to the end of their academic year, this was a dream come true. Among students it is consensus that there are only two ways to perfect happiness, and that is either pizza or burritos.

From before the doors opened at 12pm, the band started up on the corner (face-painted with sugar skulls) and the queue began. People were recording their wait on Snapchat and Twitter, dancing to the music and whatsapping their friends desperately; “where are you?! The queue is moving! Quick!”

At the door customers were given a menu for future visits, and they got to admire the brightly coloured graffiti and posters inside while a girl passed down the queue to keep up the morale and tell people what they could order. Mexican wrestlers and dancers then entertained the crowd, and the service at the counter was record fast (27 seconds). At their tables, people were taking photos and sharing on social media their free meal of the day. After they had eaten, customers were often a taste of nachos and dips on their way out, and then they were tweeting their experience.

All in all, this event has given the new restaurant a mammoth of exposure on its first day. What can be taken from Chilango’s success is that the event must have enough to keep people interested and to share on social media. Not only for the purpose of social media, but it must be something that customers will be getting their friends to go with them, an experience that the group can each share, and this will mean more social media marketing between them, free publicity.