Good morning. Today, ChatGPT tries to boost engagement with “trending now” alerts and Fernando Machado signs on for Chipotle’s next chapter.

OpenAI’s latest attempt to spur engagement on ChatGPT has quickly gone the way of Sora 2, the company’s short-lived video generation app, the WSJ Leadership Institute’s Patrick Coffee reports for the newsletter.

Some users of the popular chatbot recently received push notifications on their home screens inviting them to learn more about topics it declared were “Trending Now,” like sports events and concert tickets.

The messages didn’t appear to include any paid placement by brands, according to Jonathan Gardner, a communications strategist and ChatGPT user who provided the screenshot above.

The alerts were part of a small experiment by OpenAI, according to a person familiar with the effort. Many people who have the ChatGPT app on their phones don’t know how or when to use it, so the company frequently tries new ways of encouraging them to get more familiar with it, the person said.

Tapping one of the recent notifications would open ChatGPT and trigger a query on the subjects in question. But the results of the test didn’t satisfy company researchers, the person said.

ChatGPT push alerts would have pleased brands that stood to figure favorably in them, said Jeff Matisoff, North American CEO of marketing tech network the Brandtech Group.

The alerts could have amplified attention to popular TV shows, sports leagues or product releases, for example, that already tend to generate online chatter. Brands then could have bought ads around prompts and answers related to these topics.

But it’s not surprising that the experiment didn’t work, according to Matisoff. “No one needs another trend finder. We all have them already,” he said. “I like movies. I like baking. I pay attention to three television shows. There's not much more that my chat is going to know about me.”

Despite the failure of this test, OpenAI has not entirely ruled out further testing for this kind of feature, they said.

The biggest challenge for ChatGPT push notifications is that OpenAI only knows users’ interests through their prompt histories, according to Leigh McKenzie, director of organic visibility at software firm Semrush. That’s a relatively sparse data set compared to the insights that companies like Google or Meta Platforms get by looking across products.

“Until OpenAI can expand its data ecosystem, features like this are going to keep hitting the same ceiling,” he said.

Katie Deighton writes for the newsletter on the return of a familiar face:

Can you hear the queso, Fernando?

A name familiar to longtime CMO Today readers hit the wires yesterday afternoon when Chipotle announced that Fernando Machado will become its next chief brand officer. The marketing veteran, who ascended to unofficial celebrity CMO status through his run at Burger King during the 2010s, will lead Chipotle’s global marketing strategy, brand positioning and customer engagement efforts starting June 1, the company said.

It represents a return to quick-service restaurants for the bubbly Brazilian, who spent more than seven years at Restaurant Brands International overseeing marketing for Popeyes, Tim Hortons and Burger King, rolling out the divisive but ultimately award-winning “Moldy Whopper” ad campaign for the latter in early 2020. After later CMO stints at Activision Blizzard and plant-based food company NotCo, Machado moved into private equity in 2023 as operating partner at Garnett Station Partners.

He joins Chipotle as the company attempts a reboot. In February, it reported a 2.5% same-store sales decline and a drop in orders over the final quarter of last year, despite increasing revenue 4.9%. Chipotle, which has long worked to cultivate a young clientele, has said a rocky financial landscape has kept some customers away from its increasingly pricier bowls and burritos, which, until last year, had appeared resilient to economic headwinds.

Executives in February promised to roll out new menu items, improve operations and start marketing its value in earnest. “We are trying to differentiate our brand from the sea of sameness,” CEO Scott Boatwright said then.

Machado takes over a brand-chief post that has been vacant since Chris Brandt’s departure in January.

Lest anybody forget the MAHA-before-MAHA “Moldy Whopper,” here’s a reminder:

Two contentions with implications for marketers popped out from Domino’s latest results.

First, the pizza chain called rivals’ promotions both a drag on Domino’s sales—and unsustainable for the others.

“We’re built to do that stuff over time,”  CEO Russell Weiner said on the company’s earnings call, as reported by Restaurant Business. “I know the kind of volumes that need to be done in order to make deals like the ones we have out there profitable. I do not believe our competition can drive those kinds of volumes because our advertising budget is as big as the two biggest competitors combined.”

Second, less optimistically, Domino’s executives said U.S. consumer sentiment had plunged to levels last seen during peak Covid-19, as Heather Haddon noted in the Journal. Lower-income diners in particular were pulling back, they said.

Domino’s partly as a result lowered its U.S. same-store sales growth estimates for the year.

Together those points seem like a caution for marketers: Plan your deals with care. You could be depending on them for a while.

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