All hope is not yet lost.

Three Kent State teams participating in Chipotle’s first advertising contest still have the opportunity to win third place in the competition.

Of the 69 videos submitted, the team whose Chipotle advertising video with the most views on YouTube by Nov. 17 will win third place and a $5,000 cash prize, said Dave Smeltzer, assistant professor of electronic media. Smeltzer’s video field production class submitted two videos, called “What Does Your Burrito Do?” and “True Love.”

WATCH THE VIDEOS To view the videos, visit YouTube and search “Kent State Chipotle,” or plug the following URLs into your computer: • http://youtube.com/watch?v=Wtl0HE-1kao • http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ir1PIYQ3SmM • http://youtube.com/watch?v=Pen2-nyN6Gk

Chipotle announced the first and second place winners Friday, which were decided by a group of advertising professionals inside and outside of Chipotle’s internal marketing agency. Southern Methodist University’s team won first place with its ad, “The Wall,” and the University of Nebraska won second place for its ad, “Dady,” said Jenna Simenic, Chipotle publicist for the Midwest region.

Chipotle officials originally planned to have their judges choose all three winners.

“YouTube became an afterthought because they (Chipotle) started getting all this great work and wanted to showcase it,” said Crickett Karson, Midwest spokeswoman for Chipotle.

Senior electronic media production major Scott Verlihay, whose team produced the video “What Does Your Burrito Do?”, has been relying on technology and word of mouth to spread the news about his team’s video on YouTube.

“We just sent it to a lot of friends and family,” Verlihay said. “Facebook was a lot of help, too.”

Verlihay’s team wanted to create an ad that was visually funny and took a tongue-in-cheek look at personalizing products. The final product included a four-foot burrito.

“To be honest, we all just wanted to do something we could laugh at, but I’m pretty proud of it,” Verlihay said. “We did get an ‘A’ on it.”

Kent State sophomores Will Dages and Mike Mitchell decided to participate in the contest even though they were not part of Smeltzer’s video field production class.

Dages and Mitchell have worked together since their sophomore year at Tallmadge High School under the name of “quoteUNquote” Productions.

“When I heard about the competition, that was enough for me,” electronic media production major Dages said. “The prize didn’t matter so much. I just try to enter all the competitions I can.

“Every time I make a short, I pick up more knowledge and learn from mistakes, so that is reason enough to put something together.”

Their advertising spot called “Condiment Shopping Spree” focused on Chipotle’s “food with integrity” slogan.

“If we win any money from this thing, we are putting all of it towards better equipment to propel our future shorts into a better realm of quality,” Dages said.

So far, out of the Kent State ads, “Condiment Shopping Spree” has more than 26,100 views, “True Love” has about 3,900 views and “What Does Your Burrito Do?” has more than 2,400 views.

Contact news correspondent Jackie Valley at [email protected].