The single best fast food restaurant in the history of the world, ever

“Give the people what they want” is and always will be a relative concept, because not everyone wants the same thing (unless you’re in prison awaiting execution, in which case, I’ve heard cheeseburger and fries is pretty much the standard). Nowhere is that more true than in the world of QSR’s (aka Fast Food).

There’s Chipotle, my personal favorite, who goes out of their way to show their dedication to their fans, offering extremely high quality, fresh food, and topping it off with their Cultivate festivals highlighting healthy, locally sourced food (and music).

Sadly, there’s, KFC, whose Double Down (1380 mg of salt) set healthy eating back to a time when men were men and Doctors smoked in their examination rooms.

But happily, there’s Panera, who has more than made up for KFC’s artery-clogging abuse of humankind with their Panera Cares Cafes. What makes these Paneras special? You pay what you like.

Prices are posted, and when you order, you’re told what the full cost would be; you can pay what they ask for, or you can pay more. And most important, you can pay less—even nothing.

This is a brave, audacious, wonderfully twisted idea. No doubt, it’s inspired by our nasty economic situation. Kudos to Panera for having the guts to do it, and after a successful trial run, they’re opening up more.

A good old friend of mine always liked to say that Confidence = Generosity and there’s truly nothing more confident than giving something away, whether it’s something you can hold in your hand like a sandwich, or something you can pass on that creates value for others, like a great idea.

For better and worse, America is the home of giving people what they want. So you can cram bacon, cheese, and fried chicken into the stupidest most unhealthy sandwich since the Earl put meat between bread, and get people to like you for a little while, or at least until the saturated fat overtakes their limbic mode and they forget they ever ate it.

Or you can give people trying to get back on their feet the opportunity to have a meal once a day, so maybe, on that day, he or she will have the physical and mental energy to make that one additional call and get that interview s/he’s been hoping for, and who knows what could happen from there.

Those people aren’t just your customers. They're potential members of your community, ready to spread the gospel of what you do. It's a great lesson for any person or marketer and whether you're trying to do business or just lead an upright life, it's powerful stuff.

Consider the community-building power of a kidney

What’s the most powerful organ in your body? From a community-building standpoint, I’d have to say the kidney.

To back up a step:

Other than religion and the Tea Party, there may be nothing that ties people together as passionately as experiencing a medical challenge or tragedy. Breast Cancer Walks and Relays for Life are two very visible examples, but across the world, people form communities that start in sadness. So it’s a wonderful thing when they end in celebration.

And so it was with Chain 124, an incredible story of kidney donors and recipients.

You can read the New York Times story, but in a nutshell: 30 people gave kidneys to 30 people they didn’t or barely knew, but who were in danger of dying without a new kidney. Through the blindly selfless acts of the donors, kidneys were flying all over the country across four months, 17 different hospitals, and 11 states.

The donors and recipients may not be inviting each other over for drinks any time soon, but come Thanksgiving, I’m betting there will be a few extra places set at the table. I can’t think of any more powerful way to bring people together. Consider how good it would feel to participate and check out what you can do.

And the next time you say, “I’d give up a kidney to (fill in the blank),” be prepared to give up a kidney.

What Michael Jordan, Jeremy Lin, and Kim Kardashian can tell us about community building

As a responsible recorder of human progress and an authority in community building, I’d be remiss if I didn’t write about Jeremy Lin.

Tough to pen something new about him, but how about this: If he removed the second and third syllables from his first name, he’d sound like a country superstar, maybe the long lost Taiwanese stepchild of Loretta Lynn?

Even that wouldn’t approach the level of superstardom Lin has achieved in his three-week ascension. Sports Illustrated cover (the jinx hasn’t happened yet), ebay madness, even rumored dates with Kim Kardashian, a member of a family that apparently can’t get enough NBA players in their lives.

To me, the most amazing thing has been the community of love and support that has grown around him. Granted, his is an amazing Cinderella story, but without the power of social media—last week he hit 2.6 million times on Twitter, more than LeBron, Kobe and seven other NBA elite players combined--there might not have been any $40,000 jersey sales or potential Kardashian Koupling.

For the most part, the explosion of the Jeremy Lin community isn’t a very good lesson for marketers when it comes to building communities for their brands, because of the uniqueness of the situation. But one thing you can learn:

There’s nothing like the combination of success, humility, and a great smile.

Just ask today‘s birthday boy. You know who I'm talking about...

Golden Ideas (burrito by burrito)

Today's post from Twisted Brother and contributor Brian Lauvray:

Rewind to this point last week and recall the hubbub surrounding the Super Bowl, and more importantly, the ads shown during the Super Bowl. Not a ton of “Wow” moments, but people were impressed by Coke’s polar bears and their real-time interest in the Giants-Pats score.

People were seemingly miffed at the latest Volkswagen Star Wars ad (none of the kitsch of “The Force”); but none of the ads had that joie de vivre or, heck, even “punch” we’ve all come to expect from the most-watched TV event of the year. Instead of “1984” or Cindy Crawford alluringly sipping Pepsi, we had GoDaddy’s exhaustingly stupid body painting ad and Dorito’s cat-killing pooch.

Now consider where we’re at today, a week past the Super Bowl, a day removed from the Grammy’s with all of us still milling about the water cooler, chatting over the success of Chipotle’s offering. What’s the difference? What has separated Chipotle’s cute-as-a-button 2-minute spot from the million dollar offerings from a week ago? Well, a few things. For starters, Chipotle’s ad is long enough that to have broadcast it on during the Super Bowl, Chipotle would have had to have sold 1,642,465 barbacoa burritos to pay for the media.

No problem for the seemingly always-adaptable Chipotle. During the Grammy’s, much-loved troubadour/fighter for the little guy, Willie Nelson, covers a Coldplay song? Toss in the inspired animation of rebuilding farmlands and a pastoral idyll with humans and pigs being friends? This is advertising gold, folks.

And so as it was written, so shall it be told, that a burrito ad would erupt and capture the Social Web’s imagination during the Internet-wide conversation/”zing fest” that Twitter becomes during an award show.

Wow. Chipotle commercial for the win.

— Andy Masur (@drmasurjr) February 13, 2012

At 8:15 p.m. I noticed that tweet from my friend Andy; curious to learn more I searched “Chipotle” on Twitter. A nation of agog tweeps were clamoring for more and expressing true emotion to, of all things, an ad; Chipotle had struck a nerve and hit a home run with such ease.

Planning, timing, a moving, animated narrative, the gentle crooning of a country legend. That’s all it took. Not a Super Bowl-sized budget, but the savvy and know-how to realize that with the power of social, delivering and touching an audience is so easy. It might be giving them too much credit to say that Chipotle had this planned out. But, well: “Country legend + music-focused audience + our quaint animated message = Seamless marketing and viral matrimony.”

More so, the success of Chipotle suggests something more nuanced than ratings, tweets or the buzzy notion of a “viral hit.” Most surprising was the emotion people expressed in tweets. Culling this positive, emotive sentiment? This is Chipotle’s moment to harness that into community-building in the digital realm and the “IRL” realm.

Additionally, other brands should take heed: the world of social marketing is way less about numbers, and way more about connecting with your audience and enmeshing them within a community of shared belief and faith in a product.

Three wonderfully telling stories on social media

I continue to be fascinated by Pinterest and I’m assuming you’ve been swept up in the craze, too (if you‘ve been invited, that is). For once I was a semi-early adopter and it continues to enthrall me.

And apprently, I’m not alone.

Story #1: Pinterest drives more traffic than Google+, YouTube, and LinkedIn combined. Time spent on Pinterest seems to fly by. PG-rated voyeurism is about as addictive as a social media behavior can be. Speaking of which…

Story #2: Social Media is more addictive than tobacco and alcohol. So maybe all those millions of folks hunched over glittering screens isn't so bad after all? If people in this country can spend their time Tweeting instead of smoking and drinking, the optometry industry and Relax The Back stores should soon be experiencing a boon, but Dr. Drew may soon be out of business.

And to further the notion that bad behavior may be a relative term for our technorati, a form of naughty fashion guides…

Story #3: Socks as a form of rebellion in Silicon Valley.

Not much I can say about this one other than, it sure is hard to make fun of goofballs making millions who get a rush from polka dotted socks.

Hold on. I just did.

Join a community, win millions! (or not)

It’s true that communities can help brands become commercial powerhouses and money-making machines. But it takes investments of time and money. It must be a steady, strategic, nose-to-the-grindstone approach that rarely happens overnight.

Or not.

This is what makes Sodeta, Spain an anomaly. Because every person in that town of 70 households, except one, recently went from poverty to wealth after winning Spain’s famous Christmas Lottery. It's a great story.

Some won millions, and even the least fortunate hauled in $130,000.

Then there’s Costis Mitsotakis.

He was the only person in the village who didn’t buy a ticket. So now he lives as proof that when a community is doing something together, best to jump in while you can before you’re driving your Yugo in a parade behind a bunch of McLarens and Bentleys.

Which won’t happen in Sodeta, where life is now merely filled with more card-playing leisure, and some of the more extravagant purchases have been a patch of land and a sofa. Sounds like this community is going to stay together for some time.