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Archive for February, 2010

Crash the Super Bowl winners + Ad Meter results!

Posted by Beardy on February 7th, 2010

Super Bowl XLIV just ended and that means that the 2010 installment of Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl contest is finally over too. All three winning commercials aired in the first quarter but SURPRISE!…Doritos snuck one more Crash the Superbowl finalist in during the 4th quarter. And holy crap, the USA Today Ad Meter results have just come in and SURPRISE again! One of the Crash the Superbowl ads cracked the top 3! I’ll post all the numbers below but first here are the official winners in the order they ran. From what I’ve read, the order that the commercials aired reflect which entries got the most, second most and third most votes last month.

1. Underdog. Created by Nick Dimondi/Joshua Svoboda

2. House Rules. Created by Joelle de Jesus

3. Casket. Created by Kevin T. Willson

SURPRISE BONUS AD. Snack Attack Samurai. Created by Ben Krueger

A few days ago I explained here and here that it looked like Doritos had already revealed the names of the Crash the Super Bowl entries that were going to air tonight. The finalist entries that were publicly identified as destined for air last week were Snack Attack Samurai, Kids These Days and Casket. Looks like those predictions were off by one. But hey, way back in December, before the finalists were even announced, we predicted in this post that “Underdog” would go all the way this year. So hurray for us!

UPDATE: Oh snap!!!! The Ad Meter results are in and UNDERDOG was rated the second best commercial of the entire game right after the Betty White/Snickers spot! That means the makers of Underdog, 5 Points Productions will be receiving a $600,000 bonus from Doritos. As for the other three Crash the Super Bowl entries that aired tonight….well, they didn’t fare so well. None of them even cracked the top 10. Here are the numbers.

1. Underdog. Ad Meter Score: 8.27. Ad Meter Rank: #2

2. House Rules. Ad Meter Score: 7.12. Ad Meter Rank: #11

3. Casket. Ad Meter Score: 7.00. Ad Meter Rank: #14

4. Snack Attack Samurai. Ad Meter Score: 6.79. Rank: #17

Now even though none of the other ads made the top 3, the scores are still quite impressive. After all, there were 60 commercials ranked by the ad meter. Plus since Snack Attack Samurai aired so late in the game I bet its score suffered because the focus groups in the Ad Meter polling were probably a little burnt out by then. You can see the full list of ad meter results here: USA Today Ad Meter.

So what did we learn tonight? Well, we learned that Beardy is a genius! We totally called this one. Over the last few weeks we’ve repeatedly claimed that “Underdog” was going to make it to the top three and not only that, we predicted that it was the only one of the six finalists that had a chance of doing so.

Seriously though, now that the dust is settling it’s clear that the big winner of the 2010 installment of the CTSB contest is 5 Points Productions. Though the Crash the Super Bowl contest has only been run three times, that plucky team of filmmakers from North Carolina have now won the competition TWICE! The 5 Points entry “Live the Flavor” won the first installment of the CTSB contest and aired during the 2007 Super Bowl. Now their entry “Underdog” has also came out on top. Plus they were the first filmmakers ever to get TWO entries in the finals in one year!!  (The other was Kids These Days)  That’s three unbelievable achievements so it looks like Doritos should get ready to crown them as the new, “Kings of the Crash.”  They’ve earned it.

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Has the 3rd Doritos winner been leaked too??

Posted by Beardy on February 5th, 2010
Image from the Sacremento Bee website

Image from the Sacramento Bee website

Yesterday I explained that on Wednesday night, CBS seemed to reveal 2 of the 3 winners of the Crash the Superbowl contest in their special “The Superbowl’s Greatest commercials.”  Near the end of the show they featured a montage of new commercials explaining it was a “sneak peek” of ads that were going to air during the big game on Sunday.  Two of the commercials in the montage were Crash the Superbowl finalists: Snack Attack Samurai and Kids These Days.

One of the most interesting things about the Doritos contest is that no one, not even the finalists are supposed to know who won until the three winning ads appear on TV during the Superbowl.  However, the 6 videos that made it to the finals were also supposed to be kept secret but USA Today revealed one finalist (“Casket”) early in a story about Superbowl ad sales.  So it seems that Doritos may be trying to milk the CTSB contest for all its worth by seizing every media opportunity that is presented to them, even if they have to share a few secrets to ensure coverage.

Possible case in point, I saw this really weird article from of all places, the Sacramento Bee.  The piece is about a local actor and in the article they repeatedly assert that Casket WILL be airing on Superbowl Sunday.  They even go so far as to say when “Casket” will air.  Here’s some of the piece:

“Rocklin High School grad and actor Nick Armstrong has a lot riding on Sunday’s Super Bowl.

The Sacramento native will appear in a Doritos commercial that’s scheduled to air sometime before the halftime show. It’s one of three Doritos commercials competing in the chip company’s “Crash the Super Bowl” contest, and the most popular will win $1 million.

Four thousand commercials were submitted to Doritos, and three of them – including “Casket,” which features Armstrong – will be broadcast Sunday. USA Today’s Super Bowl Ad Meter – a survey of television ads conducted as a live poll during the telecast – will determine the most popular.

Besides the $1 million for first place, Doritos will pay the second-place finisher $600,000 and the third-place finisher $400,000.”

Notice what was missing from that article?  The “ifs,” and “maybes.”  The paper wrote about “Casket” like it was a done deal.  So does the Sacramento Bee know something we don’t?  Ehhh, maybe not.  This article does have one red flag in it; the author seems to imply that the 3 Doritos commercials that air will receive a cash prize even if they don’t make the Top 3 on the USA Today ad meter.  It seems like they got their facts mixed up.  So maybe they got the rest of the facts mixed up too?  It’s a tough call, the author really makes it sounds like he’s privy to some inside information.

You can check out the rest of the Bee’s article here:  http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/2511957.html

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CBS announces 2 of the Crash the Superbowl winners early!(?)

Posted by Beardy on February 4th, 2010
kidsday

Last night, CBS aired a special called “The Superbowl’s Greatest Commercials.”  It was basically just an hour-long run-down of popular Superbowl ads from the past.  But at the end of the show, they revealed snippets of several ads that will be airing during this year’s Superbowl.  Here’s what the host said when introducing the montage:

“Here’s a sneak peak of a few more spots that will air during the big game.”

The montage didn’t include many commercials, but it did include footage from 2 of the 6 Crash the Superbowl finalists; SNACK ATTACK SAMURAI and KIDS THESE DAYS.  You can watch the entire show at CBS.com for free, but the sneak peek segment is actually available on it’s own.  Click here to watch it.

I really don’t know what to think about this.  Did Doritos really just announce two of the three commercials that won the Crash the Superbowl competition early?  I’m leaning towards “yes.”  CBS just declared to the world that those commercials “will air during the big game.”  That’s a definitive statement right there and if CBS doesn’t air those two ads, I’m sure a crafty lawyer could paint that as breach of a verbal contract or something.  At the very least, they’d be unfairly getting the hopes up of the projected winners.  I mean, could you imagine the phone calls that the makers of these two entries must have been getting when that show aired?  Would Doritos really put them in a position where they would have to tell all of their friends and family that CBS was wrong about which ads CBS was going to air on Sunday?

snak1

The case for the early reveal seems more plausible when you remember the way that the top 6 finalists were announced this year.  Hours before the official announcement, USAtoday ran a story about this year’s Superbowl ads that identified “Casket” as one of Dorito’s finalists.  So clearly, Doritos already broken with tradition this year and leaked information early to the media.

On the other hand, if you watch the entire montage you’ll notice something fishy.  Remember the Careerbuilder “Hire My TV Ad” Superbowl commercial contest?  Careerbuilder picked three home-made ads and then re-shot the ideas professionally.  All three of the re-shoots can be seen here:  http://www.careerbuilder.com/tv/

According to the Hire My TV ad website, Careerbuilder was going to pick JUST ONE of these three remakes and air them during the game on Sunday.  But the “Superbowl’s Greatest Commercials” montage includes footage from ALL THREE Careerbuilder ads….including the commercial that CBS already turned down because of lewd content, i.e., a flaming fart.  The Hire my TV ad website has that ad, entitled “Worst Seat,” as labeled “Too Hot For TV.”

So either Careerbuilder decided to buy 2 more commercial slots and CBS changed their mind about the “Too Hot for TV” ad, or the above montage contains commercials that will not air during the Superbowl

Think about it this way; it must be hard to get companies to reveal their Superbowl ads early.  Maybe that’s why 5 of the ads in the montage are commercials that have already been seen all over the web.  So it’s quite possible that the producers of “The Superbowl’s Greatest Commercials” were just lazy and instead of explaining that some of the featured ads MIGHT air on Sunday, they just lumped them in with the other sure things.  I guess we’ll find out the answer in just a few more days.

2/6 UPDATE: Hmmmm, yesterday, USA Today released it’s official list of all the commercials that will air during the Superbowl.  Careerbuilder is listed as only airing one ad.  So now we know for sure that 2 of the ads in the CBS montage won’t air during the game.  Unless the careerbuilder contestants already knew which ad was going to air, that was  areal punk move by CBS.  The might have got a lot of people’s hopes up for nothing.  Same goes for the Crash the Superbowl finalists.  I still think that the two featured Doritos ads will air, but now nothing looks 100% for sure.

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LG’s $100,000 HD film fest winner

Posted by Beardy on February 2nd, 2010

LG

It seems like this contest started taking entries forever ago, but the “Life’s Good” HD film fest sponsored by LG has finally announced their grand prize winner.  Contestants were supposed to submit films that were shot in HD and followed the theme of “Life’s Good.”  There were several categories (sports, fashion etc) but it was a narrative film that took the top prize of $100,000.

The LG winner is called Nuit Blanche and was directed by Arev Manoukian.  Here’s the official description:

“Nuit Blanche explores an experience many of us have lived before – a fleeting yet powerful connection with a perfect stranger. Set in a dark cobblestone street in the 1950’s, a man catches the gaze of a woman in a cafe across the street. This split-second moment becomes suspended in time, as the two gravitate towards each other in a hyper real fantasy where nothing can hold them back.”

I just watched all 3 minutes and 22 seconds of the short film and all I can say is “F*CK YES!”  I have seen some amazing video contest entries before but this is hands down the most impressive one I’ve ever come across.  It starts off slow but then gets awesome and finishes beautifully.

Grand Prize Winner.  Prize: $100,000

That’s outrageous, isn’t it?  My only grievance is that it seems like this was a pre-existing short film and that it wasn’t shot specifically for the contest like so many of the entries were.  The credits say that the short was “made in part with the support of the National Film Board of Canada’s filmmaker assistance program.”  In fact, it looks like the short was produced by the very successful production company, Spy Films.  Oh well, it’s still fantastic.  I mean, did you notice that the guy blew a piece of glass out of his way there at the end?  All those fancy effects and expensive production values and that little moment is what made the short for me.  It just goes to show that even in the CGI era we live in, the best films are those that use effects to express fundamentally human and universal ideas and emotions.

If you want to see just how much post-production work actually went into this short, click here to watch a video about the Making of Nuit Blance.

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Crash the Superbowl: It’s all over but screaming

Posted by Beardy on February 1st, 2010

Yesterday, voting in Doritos’ Crash the Superbowl contest came to a close and I’m sure all the finalists are relived that they can finally stop hustling for votes and catch their breath.  By now, Doritos probably knows which three ads will be airing during the big game but for the rest of us, we won’t find out until the winning commercials actually air on Sunday.  As if the month of vote-grubbing wasn’t brutal enough, the finalists won’t even know if they won or lost until they are sitting in the Doritos skybox, watching the game on TV.

A free trip to the Superbowl has got to be a lot of fun.  But how much can you enjoy it if you have to spend the whole weekend wondering what the fate of your entry is?  It’s gotta be rough.  And Doritos films all the finalists as they sit and watch the game happen on TV.  Imagine what it would feel like to be one of the 6 finalists on Superbowl sunday.  You’re watching the game from the skybox and then the Doritos folks hustle you over to a TV.  You sit and watch and….a commercial that isn’t yours plays.  The winner flips out and you congratulate him and go back to the game.  Now there are only two spots left.  So you have to wait and wait and endure this pattern two more times.

Here’s an interesting news story I found from last year about the Herbert Brothers Crash the Superbowl experience.  If you skip past their ad, you’ll see some footage that was shot inside the Doritos skybox.  They even show the moment when everyone saw that “Free Doritos” was the ad that made it to air.  (as a surprise, they also aired a second CTSB ad later in the game.)  When the big reveal happens, everyone seems pretty happy for the Herbert Brothers, but I bet there was more that one person in that room that felt like jumping through the skybox window at that moment.

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