With all the burrito joints on Grand River Avenue, one restaurant believes giving away thousands of meals is the key to winning brand-loyal customers.

Chipotle Mexican Grill, 539 E. Grand River Ave., is targeting MSU students who live in residence halls to receive the next batch of free burritos.

Before spring break, Chipotle marketing representatives delivered letters and two coupons for free burritos for residence hall mentors. This school year, there are 305 mentors across campus, which equals 610 free burritos.

Mentors then could check out the restaurant out and decide if they wanted to bring in their floors for a free burrito night. Floors that participate can go as a group or individually because each resident is given a coupon that can only be redeemed on the designated day.

Several mentors across campus have decided to register their floors for the free food night. If every mentor on campus registered his or her floors to go to Chipotle, that would be 305 floors. If every resident decided to go to the event, that would be 14,475 free burritos given out to residents.

"I never really thought about a business doing that until Chipotle sent us the letters," Wilson Hall mentor Jessica Romanik said. "It would be really sweet if more businesses did it. It was definitely a bold move."

The business is so confident in its product that if a customer can try one for free, he or she will be sure to come back, marketing manager Christine Bessert said. She would not reveal how much money giving away more than 14,000 burritos would cost, however, because of a company policy, she said.

Chipotle hasn't just sent out coupons hoping for response in residence halls. It has invited greek organizations Thursday nights and registered student organizations Wednesday nights.

"We're typically giving away 250 free meals per night," Bessert said.

Chipotle also gives away meals in what it calls a "fishbowl drawing." People drop their business cards in a fishbowl at Chipotle for a chance to win food for their office or department.

On March 20, Julie Bird, assistant director of university development, won lunch for the department of education.

Bird dropped her card in the fishbowl when the department of social science had their free burrito day at Chipotle.

"I went over and I paid for my meal when I went with the people from social science," she said. "That got me over there, and normally, I wouldn't have gone there."

Chipotle is giving away food instead of focusing on advertisements to get their name out to the public, Bessert said.

"We're trying to create a buzz about our restaurant," she said.

Although Chipotle is giving away a lot of free food, BTB, 403 E. Grand River Ave., also gave away free burritos when it opened. It continues to give away burritos in promotions, however it doesn't give away as many as Chipotle because it doesn't have the money to do it, co-owner Luke Bostick said.

"They are owned by a corporation, and we are just a small-time business," he said.

BTB gives free food away on the student radio station in exchange for advertising time. BTB also runs an advertisement in The State News once a week and does small promotions throughout the year, Bostick said.

Chipotle's tactic is a blend of different advertising and marketing methods, advertising instructor David Regan said. The two methods at work, Regan said, are a viral marketing technique and the direct response method.

Viral marketing is people talking to one another about the product, and direct response is targeting the consumer directly, he said.

"In essence, you're trying to get a response from somebody, and what you're leaving is an offer to get that response," he said.

The marketing plans can only do so much though, Regan said. Whether the customer returns depends on what happens after the consumer responds.

"As one old advertising person told me is 'you can create good advertising to get me through the door and that's where it ends,'" he said. "Now what has to happen is great customer service and experience. If the customer has a great experience, then the advertising has done its job. After this the company has to provide a good product, hopefully what you will have is a brand-loyal customer for life."