Fan made ‘National Chipotle Day’ causes social media headache for Chipotle, no free burritos for fans

Social media campaigns can cause well thought out promotions to spread across rabid fan bases like wildfire and garner a lot of free or low-cost buzz for companies.

Unfortunately, there’s not really much anyone can do to stop other people, unauthorized people, from spreading a less desirable message on the behalf of any given company. Since printable coupons began circulating, printable fake coupons have been circulating and causing consumers to get pissed off at a company because some third-party thought the company really ought to be giving away free stuff. Popular casual dining chain Chipotle is currently fighting back the widespread untruth that they’re giving away free burritos tomorrow to celebrate National Chipotle Day 2010.

The rumor started with a Facebook group that appears to be trying to pressure Chipotle into participating in the “holiday.” Although it is marked as a fan-made event, everybody knows no one on the internet reads anything, so people are just assuming there are free burritos for National Chipotle Day 2010, and are unleashing caps-lock when they finally realize that this is not the case. The message reads in part:

***NOTE: NATIONAL CHIPOTLE DAY ? FREE BURRITO DAY (THIS IS A FAN-MADE EVENT WITHOUT AFFILIATION WITH CHIPOTLE)***

In May 2007, I started National Chipotle Day on a whim to try to see how many people I could get to join. I never could have predicted, however, how much success I would encounter over the course of two weeks. Over the span of two weeks, over 22,000 people realized Chipotle is deserving of a National Holiday, and they made National Chipotle Day special. …

Also — to address a common misconception: As of right now, Chipotle is not acknowledging this as a special event. Translation: NO FREE BURRITOS. But…hopefully I will be in contact with some Chipotle representatives soon, and maybe we can change that.

The lack of acknowledgement of the fan-initiated begging hasn’t stopped legions of angry fans from storming Chipotle’s Facebook page, demanding free burritos and whining loudly that none of their local Chipotles are participating in the non-existent event:

I THOUGHT IT WAS REAL ABOUT TO GO.I CALLED AROUND THEY KEPTED SAYING NO. IT NEED’S TO BE.I POSTED ON MY FB PROFILE I HAD TO TAKE IT DOWN.I DON’T WANT IT TO BE LIKE I WAS LYING TO PEOPLE.IT NEED’S TO BE FREE BURITTO DAY.THE FAN MADE EVENT NEED’S TO BE REAL WITH IT THAT.WHY WOULD THEY SAY IT THAN?

Some poor employee named Colin has to keep stepping in to tell people that no, the event isn’t official, sponsored, acknowledged or in any way endorsed by Chipotle:

It’s a fan made event asking folks to come dine with us today in honor of us being awesome (or so goes the event description). Nothing free, just business as usual. – Colin

So, if you came here looking for free burritos, sadly, there will be none tomorrow at Chipotle. Chipotle does offer free burritos at least once a year, but that isn’t until Halloween and you have to dress like a burrito to get one.