Chipotle Blurs Lines With a Satirical Series About Industrial Farming

During the Super Bowl on Sunday, advertisers will deploy talking animals and A-list endorsers, anything to reach the 100 million Americans expected to be watching.

But Chipotle Mexican Grill, the fast-growing restaurant chain, is playing a different advertising game. Building on its unconventional marketing tactics, Chipotle next month will release “Farmed and Dangerous,” a four-part comedy series on the TV-streaming service Hulu that takes a satirical look at industrial-scale farming.

You’ll have to look hard to find Chipotle’s connection to the series. There are no scenes at Chipotle restaurants or impromptu testimonials to its tacos or quesadillas. (It is no accident, though, that the show’s young hero is named Chip.)

Rather, “Farmed and Dangerous,” billed as a “Chipotle original series,” hopes to promote the company’s concerns about sustainable agriculture and the humane treatment of animals used for meat. This stealth marketing strategy, Chipotle executives say, is not about “product integration,” but “values integration.”

Starring the actor Ray Wise, the series is a full-throated attack on “industrial agriculture,” complete with a Dr. Strangelove-like scientist inventing eight-winged chickens and cash bribes being delivered in gift boxes.

“ ‘Farmed and Dangerous’ is meant to strike large emotional chords — it’s not about selling burritos,” said Daniel Rosenberg, a former Hollywood executive whose New York-based company, Piro, produced the series with Chipotle.

A restaurant chain’s production of a comedy series appearing on a streaming-video service highlights several recent media industry trends, particularly the blurring between advertising and entertainment or news. Like “native advertising,” which involves news outlets running articles paid for by corporations to appear alongside traditional reporting, “Farmed and Dangerous” will live on Hulu next to conventional TV comedies.

The series — four scripted 30-minute episodes including breaks for commercials, some of them Chipotle’s — which Hulu calls brand-authored content, “sits in between content for entertainment and advertising,” said Bryan Thoensen, a Hulu executive. Still, he said, Hulu felt comfortable situating “Farmed and Dangerous” among its roster of comedies because the show primarily intends to entertain and has high production value along with recognized talent.

Mr. Thoensen described “Farmed and Dangerous” as an example of the longed-for convergence of the advertising industry and Hollywood, with “brands as studios.” He said that Hulu, with its tools that recommend shows to viewers based on age, geography or past viewing habits, is well positioned to deliver Chipotle’s series.

“Basically, there was no difference in this process from creating a TV show,” said Mr. Rosenberg, who has developed TV pilots and was an executive producer on the film “Inside Man.” He said that his agent at William Morris Endeavor brought the series to Hulu and that he recruited the screenwriterJeremy Pikser, who wrote the film “Bulworth,” to work on the scripts.

Chipotle’s partnership with Hulu continues its outside-the-box marketing campaign. Over the past few years, the chain has released two short animated films on YouTube that highlighted the ills of factory farming. Together, they have had 20 million views on YouTube, aided by a distinctive animation style and catchy songs performed by Willie Nelson and Fiona Apple.