 "Photo: Courtesy of Zach Vernon and Suzy Elizondo")
Two weekends and one-and-a-half rolls of foil could get advertising seniors Zach Vernon and Suzy Elizondo $30,000.
Chipotle Mexican Grill contacted 120 universities to participate in a competition for the best advertisement. The two UT students teamed up in order to tackle a contest-turned-project for their advertising portfolio class.
The 30-second ad, titled "Natural Selection," features a foil Noah, ark and several normal and mutated chickens. In their commericial, Noah selects the chickens for the ark - a flour tortilla wrapped in foil. Once in the ark, Noah activates the flood, which consists of a storm of lettuce and black beans.
Vernon came up with the idea after thinking about how Chipotle takes pride in selecting all-natural ingredients for its food.
"I thought of Noah's Ark and his ultimate selection process," Vernon said.
After establishing their direction, the two began to storyboard their commercial. Elizondo then made the props.
The commercial is a stop animation short, meaning that it is a movie made out of a series of photographs. The objects change slightly in each frame, giving the appearance of motion.
"I've always loved stop animation and never had the opportunity to try it out, so I was glad we got a chance to make our own short," Elizondo said in an e-mail.
Some parts of the ad involved back-breaking work.
"Bending in the same spot for the shoot to barely move Noah and the chicks around - my back didn't appreciate that," Elizondo said.
After finishing the project, they turned it in to their instructor, advertising lecturer Sean Thompson. They perfected it after a couple of his suggestions.
"We tried filming it with rice first, but it didn't show up with the background," Elizondo said. "Then we did only black beans, and my professor said it didn't look appetizing enough with only beans."
Chipotle allowed each school to pick two teams to submit up to three entries. UT sent two entries from two teams, and Vernon and Elizondo's commercial was chosen as one of the 12 finalists. The entire advertising portfolio class worked on the project.
"It's exciting to see how far a wild, smart and strategic idea can go," Thompson said in an e-mail. "Zach and Suzy are great thinkers. They did a wonderful job expanding their idea from a fun figment to a raw storyboard to a fully-realized stop motion piece that's reaching a national audience."
Since people are allowed to comment on videos posted on YouTube, the commercial has been getting some negative feedback. Some claim that the ad resembles a Freebirds World Burrito ad.
"Suzy and I have taken a no-response policy to all the negative comments," Vernon said. "We're only answering the positive, legitimate questions."
Elizondo agreed and admitted that the comments were somewhat discouraging. There are, however, far more positive comments, and she is thankful for all the support. Despite the bad feedback from some, winning the contest is important to them.
"This is a national competition, and that means big-time recognition," Vernon said. "We get to put this in our portfolios."
If they win the contest, half of the $30,000 prize goes to UT. After dividing what's left between them, both Vernon and Elizondo plan to save their earnings.
The contest ends Wednesday, and the winners will be announced on Thursday.
"We're all rooting for them," Thompson said.
Be the first to comment on this article!