Not Your Abuela's Queso | Chipotle and Twitter Sentiment Mining

If you are a die-hard Chipotle fan, you've probably heard your friends say:

"Chipotle doesn't have queso"

"Let's go to Moe's, they have queso"

"Talk to me when Chipotle has queso"

Things looked bleak. You were forced to cheat on your true love solely based on a cup of melty cheese. 

But FINALLY! The sun came up on September 12th, and the moment you've all been waiting for had arrived. Chipotle announced their new queso. 

The internet was abuzz. My social media feeds were filled with "TODAY'S THE DAY. Can't wait to try the new queso."

I witnessed a direct spike in queso memes and tweets.

First came the anticipation memes/Tweets/Snapchat and Insta stories and Facebook status'. 

A couple hours later... I noticed a lack of Instagram boomerangs gushing about how amazing it was. 

So my obvious next step was to take to Twitter to see what the peanut gallery had to say today. Here are a few of my favorites:

Apparently, this guy knows what dumpster juice tastes like. ^

On a scale of 1-Chipotle queso, how disappointing were these tweets? 1. I'm very amused.  

Safe to say, some queso dreams were crushed that day. Aaaand every day since. Tweets are still rolling in as consumers weigh in on this crucial and controversial topic. 

Chipotle recently had the guts to advertise queso burritos... and surprise! It wasn't received well. But the PR team is on it, taking the ugly memes and sassy tweets by storm. Combatting the bad press with their nice, personalized tweets and promises of Recipe R&D. 

I'm simply amazed by Twitter's ability to transform into a sentiment minefield. Why would a consumer write a paragraph review on Yelp or corporate Facebook page, when they can throw out a clever one-liner, a meme, and be done? Think of the benefits. Negative bandwagon tweets have exceptionally high potential for retweets (hello, popularity) AND you get a quick, to-the-point reply from the official Twitter of the brand you're annoyed with? Sign me up.

This is the direction I see reviews heading with my generation. Twitter has been the place to complain for a couple years now, but I think this concept will only increase in popularity.

Company's are taking notice. Recently, brands like Wendy's and Taco Bell have garnered publicity from witty, sarcastic tweets. My generation LOVES that and I definitely see an opportunity for brand loyalty growth if sarcastic tweets are executed correctly. Where there is great opportunity, there is great risk. If not executed correctly, get ready to slide down the slippiest of slopes.

Data analytics firms are even expanding their horizons to include Emoji sentiment mining. Lexalytics, A Boston-based cloud and on-premise text and "sentiment" analytics vendor, has expanded their cloud to include the analysis of the poop emoji and the likes. That's amazing. As society is shifting towards being more overtly colloquial, the business world's only choice is to take note and adjust. I believe by including the fun, silly ways our--dare I say it--language has evolved, we're cultivating a more authentic atmosphere which is incredibly refreshing. We're all human beings at the end of the day, we've all been a kid before, and hopefully, many of us still have that inner child within who wants to express their opinion with a silly face and be done with it. I know I do.

And that, my friends, is how queso and emoji sentiment mining relate to each other in my mind. So tell me:

Have you tried Chipotle's new Queso? Did you Tweet about it?

Let me know in the comments!

And I'll see you next Tuesday for another installment.