Bubba And Burritos

            On the night before the opening round of the U.S. Open, Bubba Watson tweeted, “Eating @ChipotleTweets for the 5th night in a row!” We at B6A were thrilled to see this Tweet for a two number reasons. First, we were happy that someone other B6A employees has eaten at Chipotle for more than five days in a row. Second, he included the hash tag “nomatterwhathappensitagreatweek”. We also believe that eating at Chipotle makes any day or week a great week.

            The only person who seemed to be a little unhappy with Watson’s tweet was CNBC’s Dan Rovell. When learning of Watson’s tweet, Rovell responded “Pic would make this a more valuable sponsorship”. Rovell has rightfully earned a large Twitter following because of his insightful posts on a variety of different sports topics. He has taken advantage of new social media outlets because he quickly saw the value in relating to fans in short and frequent content bursts.

            Yet, his response to Watson’s Tweet reflects an old way of thinking about the value of sponsorship. Why exactly would a picture of Bubba Watson increase the value of the sponsorship? As any Twitter follower knows, its best (and some would say worst) feature is that it allows you to express unfiltered opinions quickly to a large audience. Having the ability to hear from an athlete on a frequent basis and without having him/her go through traditional press or public relations outlets is one reason that sports fans love Twitter. Making Bubba take a picture at Chipotle could appear that his love of the quick serve restaurant was part of larger, coordinated PR campaign rather than his own feelings. The lack of perceived lack of authenticity would mitigate the benefit that a spontaneous post provides to Watson and Chipotle fans.  

From a narrative point-of-view, Rovell could state that it is possible to question that Watson actually loves Chipotle or attended one of its restaurants even if he ate five days in a row. Perhaps, he was just on a southwestern food kick because the U.S. Open was being played in California. A picture would confirm his passion for Chipotle burritos. Yet, one only has to do a quick Google search for Bubba Watson and Chipotle to discover that Chipotle is one of the options he is considering for next year’s Champions Dinner for the Maters. It would be hard to believe a picture of Watson eating a burrito would be necessary to confirm how much he loves Chipotle.

Finally, one could examine this Tweet from a revenue perspective. Would adding a picture really add economic value to Watson’s comments? Chipotle received an increase in brand awareness and brand perception from Watson’s fans by the Tweet. In addition, it is possible that Chipotle received new customer visits from the Tweet as Watson’s fans may have wanted to follow the culinary lead of one of their favorite golfers. Would Watson’s followers be more or less likely to attend Chipotle if they saw a picture of him eating a burrito rather than just reading about him going five times in a row? We find this to be very unlikely. The point of this Tweet is that Watson loves Chipotle so much that he ate the food five nights in a row. Do people really need to see him doing that to understand how awesome Chipotle is or his love of the Brand?

One of the biggest challenges of sports sponsorship today is coming up with approach to value its inventory. In the past, organizations have used pictures of sponsorships to prove the value they are delivering to corporate partners in what is generally referred to as the recap process.  Block Six Analytics proprietary Corporate Asset Valuation Model goes beyond showing pictures of a sponsorship to demonstrate value to corporate partners. Instead, we examine how sponsorship can increase revenue and meet partner goals through targeting specific demographics and focusing on specific channels. Being able to target younger consumers through an organic Twitter post would drive significant value to Chipotle whether or not a picture was included.