The Scarecrow Favorite 

Fast-casual chain Chipotle Mexican Grill added some spice to its long-running "Food With Integrity" sustainable farming campaign by teaming with Academy Award-winning design firm Moonbot Studios for The Scarecrow, an animated short film and accompanying mobile game created to increase consumer awareness of animal confinement, synthetic growth hormones, toxic pesticides and other fixtures of industrial food production.

The Scarecrow unfolds in a dystopian world in which fictional goliath Crow Foods Incorporated dominates food production, staffing its factory with scarecrows displaced from their jobs on nearby farms. But when one demoralized scarecrow returns home after a brutal workday and picks a bright red pepper (an homage to the Chipotle logo), everything changes: Colors turn brighter, the music ramps up, and the scarecrow regains his zest for life. He harvests more fresh vegetables, travels to the city and opens a burrito stand. The iOS game enables users to wage their own battle against Crow Foods by transporting animals from confinement to open pastures and replanting the fallow fields of Scarecrow Farms.

The short film reached 6.5 million YouTube views less than two weeks after its September 2013 premiere, while the free game reportedly topped 500,000 downloads within about six weeks of landing in Apple's App Store. At press time, YouTube views had passed 12 million. The game remains installed on untold numbers of iOS devices--and each time consumers open the app, Chipotle tugs at their heartstrings and appeals to their stomachs.