Not pictured: you.
It’s been a week now since Doritos announced their 6 Finalists in the Crash the Superbowl contest and it seems that the unanimous opinion of the people of the Internetz is that Dorito’s “Top 6” selections are….not wonderful, which is surprising because last year, all 5 Crash the Superbowl finalists were exceedingly wonderful! They were all tremendous, hilarious and totally original. (Well, that one with the cat wasn’t that hilarious but I’m trying to make a point here.) I hate to say it but pretty much every finalist commercial from last year is better than every finalist commercial this year. With one exception…but I’ll talk about that in a second.
I entered the Crash the Superbowl contest this time around and of course I would have loved to get to the finals. But because of the extreme level of quality seen in last year’s finalists, I didn’t get my hopes up. This was the first year I entered the competition and in all honesty, I saw my CTSB experience this year as a test run for next year. This year I figured out what I could pull together and for how much and in what type of time frame. So I wasn’t heart broken when I didn’t get an e-mail from Doritos before the official notify date. I was actually really looking forward to the announcement of the finalists so that I could see some kick ass video contest entries.
But there isn’t a ton of kick-ass going on in the official Top 6. All of the finalists are…ok. Two of them though are so technically flawed that I am stunned that they could have made it this far. A third has an inexplicably cruel story that makes absolutely no sense. But it looked slick so I guess that was good enough to make it this year. Not making the finals is not a big deal. But seeing sub-par ads reach the Top 6 really stings.
A bizarre mix of WIN and FAIL
So we’re all upset. But what can we do about it? Right now, I think the best course of action for all us disgruntled Doritos fans should be to start looking towards next year. The smartest thing we can do now is try to ensure that Doritos will bring the Crash the Superbowl contest back this fall.
How do we do that? By helping Doritos score another USA Today Ad meter win. As our pal Rummy once said, You go to war with the army you have, not the one you wish you had. That means instead of moaning about what videos SHOULD have made it to the finals, contestants should focus on ensuring that the best videos of the Top 6 make it to the Superbowl. Breaking into the Top 3 on the Ad Meter is the entire point of this year’s contest,. So if the selected commercials flop and don’t accomplish that goal, Doritos might decide to try something different in 2011.
So, for the next week or so, we will be reviewing all 6 of this year’s Crash the Superbowl finalists. Not only will we be critiquing these entries, but we will be analyzing their theoretical chances on the USA Today Ad Meter poll. We’ll be explaining which videos would have a fighting chance and which would be doomed to be remembered as the lamest spots of the game.
Spoiler alert! We have already been calculatin’ the odds of each video and have determined the entry that has the best chance of scoring a Top 3 spot is UNDERDOG. Not only does it have the best chances, it was actually my personal favorite video before the finalists were even announced! So in the case of Underdog, I was very happy to see it make the finals. We’ll have more on UNDERDOG and why we think it has what it takes to score another big win for Doritos, later. But since there are only 20 DAYS left to cast your votes, I wanted to declare Underdog as our official pick right now. If you look at the upper right hand corner of our sidebar, you’ll see a little daily reminder to vote. Click that banner and you’ll go right to Underdog’s page on the Crash the Superbowl site. And if you head to Doritoscontest.com, you can learn more about the entry and the guys who made it.
If you want another chance at Crashing the Superbowl, you first have to help make sure the contest comes back. So do like Beardy and vote everyday for the unstoppable juggernaut that is UNDERDOG!
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I voted! This one and Kids these days are the 2 best by far!
Contest officials still have a “musical” chairs option to enhance next yrs chances too, so actually can hold that thought about voting “continuously”…but hey it is your choice
Rolan,
What do you mean by “musical chairs” option? Not sure what that means but it sounds interesting.
i like the underdog the best as well. I laugh when i saw it the first time on your blog. The other commercials aren’t that good or funny. I was really disappointed with the judges choices. But well, let’s make the best out of it.
I will vote for the UNDERDOG.
Hey Beardy,
I somewhat agree with the premise of your post. We ‘do’ need Doritos as an annual showcase for the freelance community, except not if the current judging trend continues. My fear is the balance of brands looking to this years finalists bracket and saying “This is the best the freelance world has to offer?”. Sorry, Dan, but there were better spots in the gallery that entertained and branded to a stronger degree than at least half of these finalists. I would/could not have said that last year.
If Doritos fails in the Ad Meter Polling and in the process, misrepresents our community, than it is not a program to endorse with blind loyalty. When you add in the frustration of creatives producing content with an undefined brief and ‘anything goes’ judging process……
I am hoping I am proved wrong, but for that to happen, the ‘right’ three spots need to come out of the internet voting phase, because if they don’t, Doritos will be lucky to get even one (1) spot in the top five.
I agree with you on UNDERDOG. I also think the other Five Point spot ‘Kids these Days’ and ‘Casket’, need to surface when the public voting is over. With these three, Doritos might have a fighting chance at saving face. I am toying with throwing my support to an individual spot ‘Kids These Days’, but it flies in the face of my intended neutrality as a reporting blogger of the genre. I will mull it over.
Jared aka the VCK
Beardy asked for detail on “musical chairs” so here goes: An interesting season relies on having all the finalists strong. So if CTSB officials commit to the 6-finalist format, if there is a season when half or so are not so comparable give the next 3 a shot at the prize
That broadens recruitment, think about it. The benched entrants can still return next yr & they were compensated regardless.
they picked such bad ads, why would anyone want them back?
[...] I read the kind of hand-wringing-fear coming from some of the bloggers like my buddy Beardy over at Video Contest News, who is so afraid Doritos might not run the contest again if it doesn’t make the top [...]
It would have been nice to lose to ads that i actually thought were better than mine or others I saw. The 6 finalist are just no good; Unfunny and uninteresting. Underdog is probably the best out of these week choices.
And yes I hope next year this contest is happening again and the make a more user friendly site that better displays the video and isn’t so annoying.