Chipotle's 'Back to the Start' cartoon sells sustainable farming — Cannes 2012 double GP

Chipotle wanted Americans to understand — and care about — how its food is raised, and to distinguish itself from fast-food rivals without lecturing. It had never made a film before, so it chose a cinematic short that could run in theaters and online rather than a traditional ad.

Make the sourcing argument a two-minute stop-motion film: a farmer slides into factory farming, then returns to sustainable methods, to Willie Nelson covering Coldplay.

CAA conceived the film; Nexus London's Johnny Kelly directed stop-motion animation showing a farmer's family farm grow into a factory farm and then return to sustainable methods. The two-minute short ran before features in roughly 5,700 US theaters and online, with the Willie Nelson cover sold on iTunes — 60 cents per download going to the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation.

At Cannes 2012 the film won both the Film Grand Prix and the Branded Content & Entertainment Grand Prix, and the soundtrack reached No. 1 on iTunes' country chart. It became Chipotle's signature piece of storytelling — the company later called it its first original short film — and turned a supply-chain philosophy into entertainment people chose to watch.

Chipotle's 'Food with Integrity' promise — meat and produce raised in more sustainable ways — was easy to claim and hard to feel. In 2011 the chain, which had never made a film, decided to show the idea instead of stating it.

With Creative Artists Agency and director Johnny Kelly at Nexus London, Chipotle produced a two-minute stop-motion short called 'Back to the Start'. It follows a farmer whose small family farm evolves into an industrial factory farm; in a moment of reflection he tears it down and returns to raising food the way he began — 'back to the start'.

The film was set to Willie Nelson's cover of Coldplay's 'The Scientist', and the song was sold on iTunes with 60 cents per download donated to the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation. The short played before features on roughly 5,700 US theater screens and appeared online and on Facebook, framed by Chipotle as a way to illustrate the choices people face about food.

At Cannes 2012 the film won both the Film Grand Prix and the Branded Content & Entertainment Grand Prix, and the song reached No. 1 on iTunes' country chart. Chipotle later described it as its first original short film, the start of a storytelling tradition the company would build on in the years that followed.

It dramatized a complex supply-chain philosophy in a wordless two-minute story, so the message needed no explanation or argument.

The music did the emotional work: Willie Nelson covering Coldplay gave the film a ready-made audience and a shareable, singable idea.

It chose a format people opt into — cinema and online — rather than interrupting them, so watching felt like choice, not advertising.

Every download of the song funded the cause the film argued for, making the commerce and the message consistent.

A brand-values argument can travel as entertainment: when story, craft and music are genuinely good, the audience does the distribution — and the cause wins from the choice to watch.

The film collected two Grands Prix at Cannes 2012, and its soundtrack topped iTunes' country chart with proceeds funding the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation. Chipotle's newsroom later called 'Back to the Start' its first original short film, and the company continued the format with later animated shorts as it built a purpose-driven brand identity around food and farming. The work is regularly cited as a reference case for branded content.