Chipotle scores its largest sports sponsorship by partnering with the NHL
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Chipotle Scores With A Top Shelf Promotion
Since 2021, Chipotle has been “the official Mexican-themed quick service and Mexican-themed fast-casual restaurant of the NHL.” This is the brand’s largest sports sponsorship to date, with prominent on-ice signage and plenty of other branding opportunities throughout games and broadcasts.
Included in this partnership is a one-day “Wear Your Hockey Jersey” program that offers Buy-One-Get-One (BOGO) deals to in-restaurant diners wearing a hockey jersey. There was a tight gap for this promotion, where patrons could only score this deal after 3pm local time on Tuesday, May 23rd. Regardless of these parameters, hockey fans heard the message loud and clear.
*Our data comes from a random panel of 20 million credit & debit card holders in the United States. Transactions portrayed here are from 5/6/2023 through 5/30/2023. A “sports fan” is defined as someone who has spent money directly with a professional team or league-owned entity such as a direct-to-consumer streaming platform or merchandise shop.
On average, about 9% of paying sports fans visited Chipotle in the Month of May. On the day of the BOGO promotion, about 14% of NHL fans got Chipotle. This is not only a higher concentration of fans than NHL’s average during May of this year (10% of fans), but also higher than all other sports fans on this promotional day.
Chipotle’s commitment to hockey extends throughout the sport beyond the NHL. They’re the title sponsor of the USA Hockey Youth National Championships, Men’s & Women’s U.S. National Team, and Junior National Teams. There is a strong brand awareness among hockey enthusiasts, and Chipotle is working hard to continuously resonate with the passionate fanbase.
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