This episode of The Cutting Onions podcast features my conversation with Dan Fogarty, Founder of Call Fogarty, an agency that helps cool companies become cult brands. Dan was also one of the earliest Marketing executives at Chipotle, first on the agency side, and then working directly for Chipotle for many years creating the iconic brand voice we had in those early days. He was responsible for leading the team that created the legendary advertising and branding messaging that resonated with our guests in ways we could have never predicted, and connected marketing directly with the culture we were building. And they did it on a shoestring budget.

For me, as a young multi-unit leader back in 2002, getting to experience the way Chipotle approached Marketing impacted me forever, because it was the first time I looked at Marketing and Operations as being interconnected. They were then, and they still are today.

In this amazingly fun conversation Dan unpacks so many things including:

- How Marketing and Culture are connected
- Using every medium we had to communicate with the guest: What Dan calls the “cereal box strategy”
- Using our food as currency
- Marketing to solve a problem
- The importance of a words and tone of voice and how they add a whole other dimension
- How a brand is a chair, music, napkin, and the bathrooms
- Teaching people how to cook
- How we advertised before Facebook and Instagram
- Teaching people you could get great food served fast in a time when most restaurants were focused on cheap price points

And so much more.

Dan and I talked at length about the early lessons that we learned at Chipotle and how those early marketing decisions helped influence how we built the brand. This was such a great conversation, truly showing that culture and marketing are one, and completely connected to operating a great restaurant.

It was so great getting to revisit the history of Chipotle marketing in the early days, and then realizing how much of that approach still resonates in today’s marketplace for any brand out there. If you are a small brand, you can do these things, and I highly recommend you listen to Dan’s advice and implement some of these tactics where you can. They may look a little different in 2021, but the spirit of this approach is timeless.

Stay tuned at the end for a couple of bonus radio spots that will bring a smile to your face…”Chicken Man” and “Salad Kountry”.