Emelia Thibeault Marketing Management Blog

While learning about brand equity and how it can affect an organization, I thought of the food safety problems Chipotle faced in 2015. In 2015, food from Chipotle caused 10 outbreaks nationwide of serious illness including E. Coli, Norovirus, and Salmonella. At least 500 people were affected, but no deaths were reported. This led to various lawsuits brought against Chipotle aiming to obtain compensation for medical bills, loss of wages, and other damages. Additionally, a suit was brought against the Simi Valley, California store for attempting to hide evidence of a Norovirus outbreak.  These events all contributed to Chipotle's brand liabilities. "Brands can also incur brand liabilities due to product failure, lawsuits, or questionable business practices" (Best, pg 253). Check, check, and check. Chipotle's product failed by getting people sick, lawsuits were rolling in, and food safety and transparency (Simi Valley) practices were definitely questionable.  ...

This blog post is addressed to the Hot Table team that I worked with in campaign planning and management, my classmates that also worked on the campaign, and my professor, Dr. Spotts, who was always excited when we incorporated marketing theory into our campaigns. I also believe this information will be helpful as a real world example for my marketing management classmates. While reading through the book and completing the week 4 simulations, the performance trade-offs and customer value really stood out to me. I think it directly reminded me of the Hot Table campaign because of the Hamburger example. The attributes in this simulation (4.4) were similar to those that we found most important to Hot Table customers. Especially, taste quality. During the campaign, we looked at eateries in general to get a better idea of who our target market was and how to best reach them. The industry is split into three main categories; sit down restaurants (ex. Outback Steakhouse, Olive Garden), fast...