Valentine’s Day gives me an excuse to comment (as so many others have) on Chipotle’s “Back to the Start”. This two-minute ad has been steadily accumulating YouTube views since August but inspired a frenzy of social commentary when it aired nationally during the Grammys.

The connection between pigs and Valentine’s Day? Passion, of course.

It’s Chipotle’s passion for “food with integrity” that so impresses me. Most brands assume consumers aren’t interested in or shouldn’t know about the supply-chain: where ingredients come from, how they’re made and what their social impact may be. (Indeed Fast Company has pointed out how unusual this is in the fast food space.)

Chipotle’s passion for their ingredients and where they come from is in a class of its own. They’ve orchestrated a shift in the conversation around ingredients that some said stole the spotlight during the Grammys (a big feat given the competition between animated pigs and, say, Adele).

It may be off-putting to some (I dunno, people who don’t like cute farm animals?) but I’d hazard that it will inspire intense loyalty in its customers (it certainly does in me) as well as ever-increasing awareness and market share for the brand. 

Last week President Barack Obama held a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at which he declared that negative coverage of the economy is pulling down consumer and business confidence, creating a self-fulfilling recessionary outcome we can all be leery of. While acknowledging that the recovery isn’t as robust as he’d like (me, too!), the President suggested that “our task is to not panic.”

Speaking from brand world, I humbly suggest that we can do better than not panicking.

How about some optimism, people?

By optimism I don’t mean fiddling while Rome burns, or encouraging irresponsible consumption (I think that was the last recession, right?), or false-front happy faces  (a bad thing for brands).

By optimism I mean brands having an ethos of not only believing that things should be better but also of working to make them so — of making a stake in progress as a brand value and a brand message. 

Examples? Chipotle is an optimistic brand in that it can rightfully claim to have done something people didn’t think possible: commit to “food with integrity” and sustainable ingredients and practices, about which it boasts across its owned media spaces. It would be an even more optimistic brand if it kept on raising its sustainability game despite the lingering recession and rising commodity costs. One might also put Whole Foods, which recently reported its strongest results in years, in the same category.  

A very different example: Chrysler’s “Imported from Detroit” is so optimistic that it feels like a political campaign boosting the Motor City. It’s not surprising to see this campaign being appropriated by an actual political campaign, for the Liberal Party in Ontario — but arguably the approach won’t do much for Chrysler, as it’s just words disconnected from any actual change in behavior, approach or product innovation.

Negative Nellies out there may insist that continued panicking is the way to go, but I suspect there will be a trend toward optimism in and out of brand world. Heck, if you don’t believe me, read what PSFK had to say on the subject back at the height of the recession. And if you’re still not convinced, agree to disagree and go watch Adora Svitak’s TED Talk for a worldview based on just this optimistic ideal. 

My takeaway for today from Advertising Week, based 100% on the event I attended — a roundtable of CMOs and top marketers from Best Buy, Chipotle, GE, Yahoo and IBM, organized by Fast Company:

CMOs still believe in the power of advertising (as Beth Comstock of GE said: “It works. We see it.”)…

… but they are defining advertising very broadly (it’s an eco-system, not a :30 spot)…

… and most impressive to me, very passionate on the subject of brand passionates…

… Barry Judge of Best Buy talked about their Twelpforce…

… And also about opening up a channel so all 150,000 Best Buy employees can chime in on marketing, many of them (via a widget) from the store floor…

… Beth Comstock of GE talked about its Open Innovation Forum, which has generated 3,000 ideas from 100s of countries…

… Mark Crumpacker of Chipotle talked about its amazing focus on listening to customers and enlisting brand passionates for a CSR initiative…

… Ben Edwards of IBM talked about IBM’s Smarter Planet initiative and its campaign to build the world’s largest supercomputer by enlisting 2M people in peopleforasmarterplanet.com…

… and Elisa Steele of Yahoo talked about investing in local communities through random acts of kindness that in turn get people engaged in Yahoo.