Thursday, November 30, 2006

SMU Students Win Chipotle / YouTube Viral Marketing Creative Contest

They took second in popular viewership

By Pegasus News wire

With 8,007,634 views in the first three weeks it was posted on YouTube.com, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's "Dady" is Chipotle Mexican Grill's "30 Seconds of Fame - Most Viewed" winner. Southern Methodist University's "The Wall" was a close runner-up, receiving 7,763,368 views in the same timeframe. Total views were noted as of 2:00 p.m. Mountain Time on Friday, November 17th.

"Dady" beat out nearly 70 entries from more than 20 colleges and universities nationwide. All spots were submitted as part of Chipotle's "30 Seconds of Fame" student advertising contest. The contest challenged students to create 30-second commercials that best represented Chipotle and its personality. The "Most Viewed" component of the contest encouraged students to conduct marketing efforts to drive viewers to the videos posted on YouTube and compete for a $10,000 prize.

"This was an opportunity for students to use their imagination to not only develop an outstanding ad, but to find creative ways to drive audiences to view it," said Jim Adams, Chipotle's director of marketing and bon vivant. "We developed this contest with the hopes of tapping into our consumers to see how they would tell the world about Chipotle. This was also Chipotle's first real step to embrace video and user-generated content and, while we were a bit alarmed by a few of the spots, most of the students did a tremendous job, making us optimistic about the potential for using the spots in other ways."

"When the students first started this project, their goal was to think big and capture their creative spirit to develop an advertisement to best represent their interpretation of a respected brand," said Amy Struthers, Assistant Professor of Advertising at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "We are thrilled with the teams' ability to tell a compelling story in 30 seconds and their ability to successfully generate enough buzz to secure the Most Viewed title and a cash prize."

Here's the SMU Video, which gt 7,763,368 views, about 250,000 short of the winner.

Chipotle launched its two-tiered "30 Seconds of Fame" student advertising contest in October. The winner of the creative component, "The Wall" by Southern Methodist University students, was announced earlier this month. Students on the team received $20,000 - half to go to the school and half to split among the team members - while the second place team, University of Nebraska students who created "Dady," received $10,000 to be divided between the students and the school.

Source: Chipotle

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• Marketing / Advertising / PR
• Technology > Computer Industry > Internet
• Colleges & Universities > Southern Methodist University

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