The new movie Food, Inc. is getting a lot of attention with its focus on problems with our food supply. Healthy food brands like Chipotle and Stonyfield are promoting the film.

Chipotle is funding free screenings of the movie across the country. That’s a great promotion, because it gets people passionate about the cause to reach out to their friends, to bring them to a movie … and to spend time on the Chipotle web site.

I am sorry I have to label this as a #FAIL.

1. The Chipotle site is a flash site, so not visible to people with screen readers. I guess people with sight difficulties aren’t Chipotle’s customer base.
2. There are no links to screenings. Should be simple enough to have a widget for the visitor to enters their zip code. There is a link from the Food, Inc. The link from the Food, Inc website promises free screenings but there is no payoff on the Chipotle site.
3. There is no link to the Food, Inc main site.
4. There is no tie-in to seeing the movie ( i.e. “bring a ticket stub to your local Chipotle and get a free taco that won’t make you sick” )
5. There is no tie-in with something like Fandango to make it super easy for the web visitor to close the sale, get them to the theatre and then on to a meal at Chipotle’s
6. Since Chipotle is sponsoring the movie, why are they making anyone go to the theatre? Why not just stream the movie from the Chipotle site?

Chipotle could annotate the movie with information that contrasts with how food going to a Chipotle’s restaurant is raised or grown differently.

I give this a C+ effort.

Cheap but very effective! I didn’t mention it on the tape but notice that our badge flags were the same color as the exhibitor flag. Purely accidentally — but still a fun coincidence.

By the end of the show 10% of the people at Netroots Nation were wearing our badge flags. One person wearing the NSA Wiretap Specialist was actually asked if she was!

We had people looking for our booth to get their own badge flags. We had a few leftover. Rather than take any back with us, we went hunting for victims. We didn’t ask for permission — we just started putting the flags on their badges.

People didn’t mind because the flags were so funny and appropriate to the crowd.

Hat tip to Andy Sernovitz’s blog which gave me the original idea.

[Update 3 Jan 2009]

The company we used was:

Parker Systems, Inc.

20989 Middleton Drive

Lake Zurich, IL 60047-8698

sales@parkersystems.com

800-253-5100

Parker Systems was absolutely stellar in getting us the badges rush ordered and delivered to our hotel. Double thumbs up to them!

People have also asked about the cost:

1-249 : $.49

250-499: $.47

500-999: $.45

1000+: $.43

So including shipping this was a very inexpensive marketing tool that everyone liked.

Additional notes:

1. If you do it for your company, go for the humor — the more serious badges were not as popular.
2. Try to get colors that match the official conference badges’ color ( )