EDIT: these videos were removed. bummer. i asked using the online ask a question form and was told that they are going to add some of their favorites to the chipotle.com site

chipotle mexican grill has been doing a program for a while now where design schools were invited to make videos, stick them on youtube, and then cmg would pick their favorite and that school would get some sort of reward.

this is a lot like the firefoxflicks program except that with youtube doing the hosting, cmg doesn't have to (which is a pretty smart thing, as bob cringely pointed out).

it's not really surprising that cmg - the company that uses low word-count billboards, radio, busses, email and web but hasn't done tv - is now using youtube to have tens of millions of people see their commercials. it's basically free to cmg and the only people watching them are people likely to get a favorable positive association as a result of watching the video. compare that with spending millions to get "denver viewers who watch that 70's show" with a traditional media outlet and it's clear that this whole contest+youtube was a pretty good scheme.

So, now that I'm done rambling:

winner: Southern Methodist University - The Wall

second: University of Nebraska, Lincoln - Dady