(Ben+Sam)
Here’s an interesting promotion: for every 100,000 junk emails sent to nojunk@chipotlejunk.com, Chipotle will donate $10,000 to The Lunch Box, which will help feed school kids with healthy junk-free recipes for lunch, instead of the usual prison cheese and high fructose corn syrup.
Chipotle is good for up to $50,000, so I’m guessing it will take them about ohhhh 30 minutes to fill up their inbox to the max.
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Man, those tots look good.
That’s what I was thinking…actually first thing that came to my mind was “Hey Nepoleon, gimme a tot”
Oh, god, tater tots made in a deep fryer (not mushily in an oven) are SO awesome. When I went to art camp I ate them every day for breakfast and I miss that.
If you want to get around the oil frying, you can just shake them around a dry skillet for a while and it gets crispy.
So wait — I’ve got to send junk mail to a food company to encourage them to send money to a second food company that will feed student. Seems wildly inefficient, but I’m guessing that Chipotle food wouldn’t pass nutritional guidelines for use in schools.
Students. No coffee yet.
No, it’s actually for one student. On the other hand, he’s a really fat student. =op
After watching all episodes of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, I’m gonna have to agree with you.
Yea, the inefficiencies are enough to scrap the entire idea. Can we use your theory on politicians & lawyers?
Finally, a use for that crazy cat lady in your office who loves to send chain emails!
I hope no one has to look at the mail, because I’m forwarding everything I get from my grandma and would hate to turn someone racist.
Did we just find a use for those email harvesting not so safe for work sites?
“No honey, I wasn’t looking at the naked women. I was raising money for hungry kids.”
Too easy.
Am i missing something…I send junk mail to the company and I get to feed junk-free food to students?
What kind of opposite-day rationale is this?
Up to $50,000, which should take about a week with a few strategic newsletter sign-ups.
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=194775&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1441534&highlight=
Ha, that’s neat. I signed up for a food newsletter that arrives accompanied by six million other emails. I’ve banished those to my junk folder. I’ll just forward them to Chipotle!
I guess I know where I’m forwarding my spam folder to…. but is it just a clever ruse to get you to send Chipotle your email address?
Use ‘redirect’ if you have it.
Aha! You, sir, win an internet.
I was *trying* to figure out what their angle was here. I’ll bet that’s it.
Aha! You, sir, win an internet.
I was *trying* to figure out what their angle was here. I’ll bet that’s it.
Well gosh here, Chipotle. Take my Yahoo account from 1999. It’s got around 6000 messages in the spam folder alone.
Who thought of this promotion? It’s kind of weird…only because it sounds somewhat fake.
Where’s the source for this?
That’s what I thought, sort of like those emails my mom used to send methat promised a piece of Bill Gates’ fortune if you only would forward his chain-letter emails.
Nice idea to help the community, but there’s nothing in the action of forwarding junk mail that produces a positive experience. Marketing fail
I agree. It would make more sense if they were McAfee or another security software company looking to improve their junk mail filtering technology. As is, I don’t see a connection.
Just forwarded my entire spam folder at work. That’s a solid 8,000 right there.
Eat up kids!
Ok, I’ll ask. Why don’t they just make a donation themselves? Especially since sending junk mail is not the same thing as buying any of their food. Maybe if the promotion was ‘buy a whatever and we’ll donate a nickel or whatever to a food charity’ then it would seem worthwhile. But me sending email to them just looks like a sneaky way for them to get an email address so they can turn around and send me junk mail.
But if people send their junk mail and they make the donation, then good for them and thank you.
Healthy *junk-free* recipes, guys. Get it? Get it??
Sigh.
Hmmm, I’m wondering if this is anything like that thing KFC had with the pink buckets where KFC already had paid a certain amount to the breast cancer foundation and they had to make it up by telling people their money will go towards it. But then again I doubt it because KFC was spending money and then by selling the buckets had a chance to recoup it where as with Chipotle is just going based on what junk emails they get. Either way as long as some form of money is going to the foundation then it’s a good thing.
Well, I sent 10. Is this real? I don’t want to get shut down by my ISP/gmail for sending spam. I have 85 more I can send.
I just think it’s a little odd that neither The Lunch Box nor Chipotle’s web sites have any mention of this “promotion” at all, as of this moment. You would think especially The Lunch Box would want to encourage visitors to their site to take advantage of the chance to make an effortless donation.
Predicting an update/retraction of the story by Consumerist in 3, 2, 1….
I was wondering that myself.
Here are some articles about it:
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=130826
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/chipotles-invitation-send-us-your-junk-2010-06-24?reflink=MW_news_stmp
http://www.restaurantnews.com/chipotle-wants-your-junk-e-mail/
It seems awfully suspicious, though.
And now the duplicates make your post look suspicious. My head is going to explode!!!
Thanks for the links. I was hoping to see something mentioned about it in something other than the usual news regurgitation sites, which tend to just copy/paste each other’s content on stuff like this, and you found it.
For those who didn’t bother to follow the links Billy found, an interview the Chipotle’s PR person says they chose to promote it on Facebook and Twitter rather than bother to mention it on their website. They claim the website is in the middle of undergoing an upgrade so they didn’t want to put it there. Right. I still don’t see any mention of it on The Lunch Box. That’s the one omission I’m really surprised at.
My initial take on this was that someone had set up an elaborate practical joke to get a lot of well-meaning people banned by their ISP’s for forwarding large amounts of spam around.
I was wondering that myself.
Here are some articles about it:
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=130826
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/chipotles-invitation-send-us-your-junk-2010-06-24?reflink=MW_news_stmp
http://www.restaurantnews.com/chipotle-wants-your-junk-e-mail/
It seems awfully suspicious, though.
I dont think I care about how stupid the promotion is, at least they’re doing something, and that is really what matters.
I was going to bulk select everything in my gmail spam folder but it won’t do bulk forwards
Well..While helping out and sending some junk..I saw several sites Featuring this promotion. Good PR work Chipotle! Your IT guy is going to have a heart attack.
You have to send them one by one, you get a response.
We appreciate you sending us your junk mail. We’re sending them straight to the trash. But please keep them coming, the more you send, the better school kids will eat.
So far, your contribution has helped raise over $0 for The Lunch Box.
Sincerely,
Your friends at Chipotle
PS – If you would like to hear from us occasionally, click on this link.
I don’t really want to forward my spam since I’m not convinced this is real …but I do want Chipotle for lunch now.
For those wondering if it’s real or fake, the domain looks like it’s indeed registered to Chipolte: http://who.godaddy.com/WhoIs.aspx?domain=chipotlejunk.com&prog_id=godaddy
Geez, and Bill gates just sent me an email stating that if I tell 47 friends about Windows 7 he’ll send me $10,000. Maybe I should send that to Chipotle as well.
They are discussing this on the Chipotle Facebook page, so I guess it’s real.
Too bad the Chipotle Facebook page isn’t real — the company doesn’t sponsor it or control the content.
Hmm, the plot thickens. I still smell a trick. Forward your spam, get banned by your ISP. Perpetrator is laughing hysterically at all the sheep and how easy it was to do.
The other place this is being promoted, according to an alleged interview with their PR person, is Chipotle’s Twitter account. Do they even “own” that?
This would be better if the company that makes SPAM were to do the same thing…
WAY TO GO! Hah. I just sent another one in, 3:30 now (my time) and a lot of $ has been raised!
We appreciate you sending us your junk mail. We’re sending them straight to the trash. But please keep them coming, the more you send, the better school kids will eat.
So far, your contribution has helped raise over $887 for The Lunch Box.
Sincerely,
Your friends at Chipotle
PS – If you would like to hear from us occasionally,
With my server alone, I could fill that 500k up in a day. Lots of spam. Spam, spam, spam. (had to be said)