The Crash the Super Bowl contest wound up receiving 1460 Pepsi Max commercials this year and man, I watched every single one of them. Ok…well, not really. I didn’t watch EVERY one of them. If you’ve scrolled through the CTSB contest site you’ll have noticed that there are tons and tons of duplicate entries. So many people uploaded multiple copies of the same video that I’d estimate that the actual number of unique entries is probably about 800. But full disclosure, I didn’t watch all 800 of those entries all the way through. I probably stopped watching about 50% of those 800 videos after 15 seconds. However, I do feel like I gave every video a fair shot. The reality of this contest is that filmmakers are supposed to be making commercials that are good enough to air on tv. So if I can’t hear the dialogue or see the action then it just has no realistic shot. No matter how awesomely hilarious an entry might be, production quality matters. But I’m no big-budget loving snob. In fact, I very much prefer ads that are less polished and have a more genuine, user-generated feel to them. The slickest ads actually turn me off because it feels like producers with deep pockets are just trying to spend their way into the finals. And that kind of defeats the “little guys get a shot at the big time” spirit of the competition.
So let’s assume that I watched about 400 entries from start to finish. As I was working my way through the contest gallery I would bookmark any submission that I thought was decent. What does “decent” mean? Well a “decent” entry doesn’t have any major technical problems, it doesn’t violate the rules and it has an ok story. So the “decent” entries didn’t even have to be funny. They just had to be ok. My thinking was that if there was any chance that some one, some where might like an ad, I’d bookmark it. That got me down to about 200 entries.
From there, I applied a kind of a bizarre test to the remaining ads. Let’s call it the “How the F#%& did THAT get on the Super Bowl!?” test. As I watched the 200 “decent” ads I tried to image how average folks would react to seeing this commercial for the first time in the middle of the big game. If I felt like more than 50% of viewers would think a video was too “lame” or “stupid” or “boring” to air during the Super Bowl it got cut from my list. I know that might sound of harsh but you gotta remember that the home audience will have about 2 seconds to decide whether or not they liked a commercial before the next one starts. So trying to predict viewers’ gut reactions is a pretty fair test, I think.
So that test got me down to about 60 videos. Yep, 60. In my opinion, out of the 1460 videos submitted, only 60 are good enough to have a real shot at actually making the finals. (that’s 4% by the way) Since I wound up with 60 possible contenders I decided to weed out half of them and present a Top 30 list. The list consists of what I think are the 25 strongest CTSB contenders plus 5 contenders that have issues that I suspect might keep them out of the finals. So how did I get down to the final 30? Well for each video I considered the following questions:
- Based on how the Ad Meter works, does this spot have a chance at scoring well?
- If people saw this ad on tv during the Super Bowl, would they like it enough to want to see it again later online?
- Does this video fit the style of videos that the judges at Fritolay seem to like? (based on past finalist selections)
- Is this the kind of ad that the big wigs at Pepsi, Doritos and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners said they’d be looking for in this year’s CTSB Launch video? (Goodby/Silverstein is an ad firm that helps fritolay judge the contest.)
- Is it funny?
And those questions got me to my list of 30. Pepsi won’t announce their 5 finalist choices until January 3rd but if I may be so bold, I’m gonna predict that all 5 of those finalist videos can be seen right now in this post.
But before I present the list, a major caveat!! At the last minute this year I wound up being part of a team that shot a Pepsi Max ad. I honestly didn’t have much faith that the video was going to work but I am absolutely amazed at how good the final version turned out to be. It’s so good that I absolutely had to include it in this post. Obviously I’m biased since I had a hand in making the thing but I give you folks my word that even if I had nothing to do with this ad, it would have made my list. Is this really a fair thing to me to do? I dunno, but it’s my blog so deal with it ya’ nerds! Ahem…ok, enough jibber jabber. Here’s our list of the Top 30 Pepsi Max Crash the Super Bowl contenders. The entries are listed in no particular order. Oh wait, they are. They’re in alphabetical order. Guess that counts as particular. Click on the thumbnails to see the actual videos.
TOP 25 CONTENDERS IN THE PEPSI MAX CRASH THE SUPER BOWL CONTEST:
ASSEMBLY REQUIRED:
CAR SEAT:
DOG GONE:
DON’T WASTE IT:
GO LONG:
HICCUPS:
JOIN HANDS FOR PEACE:
LAUNCH PAD:
LOVE HURTS:
MAGIC MAX:
METEOR DOG/METEOR HERO:
NO COUNTRY CLUB FOR OLD MEN:
OVER THE POP:
PEPSI MAX IS MAGNUS:
PEPSI MAX TASTE TEST:
PEPSI WEDDING:
THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE:
THE CHOICE:
THE LEGEND OF MOOSEY JOE:
THE WRESTLER:
THIRD WISH:
TORPEDO COOLER:
THROWING PEPSI:
TURF WAR:
WHO WANTS ONE?:
So my goal was to list the 25 ads that I feel have the best shot at going all the way. But I wanted to point out 5 more videos that Pepsi will almost certainly give serious consideration to. These final 5 videos however, as good as they are, have issues; issues I believe will keep them out of the finals. These entries are so noteworthy and so professional-looking though that if I left them off the list people would think I was a moron. For each I’ll explain the extenuating circumstances that I suspect will keep these spots from making the final 5. Now when you see this list you might be inclined to think that I’m just picking on the most expensive and slickest entries. But keep in mind that I cut dozens of videos from my list of contenders for all kinds of crazy reasons. The only reason I am including these entries in this list is because they are so GOOD they can’t be ignored and I feel like I should explain why they didn’t make the cut.
WHISTLE TO THE MAX. This is one of the most amazing video contest entries I have ever seen. As a piece of filmmaking it is just fantastic. I can’t even imagine how the director pulled it off. Did he just happen to be in Africa with enough production gear to shoot a small film? How did they get all those kids? The whole thing is amazing. But you can’t ignore the fact that it features original music and the CTSB rules make a big deal about that. Contestants were not allowed to create new music. They could only use the tracks provided by the sponsors. You could argue that whistling and tapping don’t constitute a “song” but the video’s description actually says “in a village in Eastern Africa, the local kids make music using Pepsi bottles” And on top of that, the melody of the bottle song actually mimics the Pepsi theme song.
TOOL FIGHT. Not counting this year, the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest has been held 3 other times. The first year, a team of filmmakers known as 5 Points Productions won the contest. The second year, a pair of brothers named Joe and Dave Herbert won and received a million dollar bonus. The third year, the 5 Points production team “won” the contest (and $600K) again. So what does all that have to do with this entry? Well it was created by the 2009 champs the Herbert Brothers. Tool Fight is a great entry and even looks like a Super Bowl commercial. But Pepsi is really, really, REALLY going to have to love it in order for them to be able to pick it. If the same people keep winning the contest every year are filmmakers going to want to keep entering? And to make matters even more sticky, the Herbert Brothers are essentially spokesmen for the Crash the Super Bowl contest. I don’t think they’re currently getting paid for their efforts but an entire section of the CTSB website is filled with “How to” videos featuring advice and tips from the Herberts. How would it look if the guys hired by Fritolay to teach contestants how to win this contest won this contest? The brothers are great guys and readers of the site and they’ve even been sharing their insiders’ perspective in the comment section of some of our recent posts. So I do feel like kind of a jerk for bringing all this up. But the truth of the matter is that history and appearances will have an impact of this video’s chances.
OFFICE BREAK. If I were to see this commercial on TV I’d never suspect it was created as an entry for a user-generated video contest. It’s very slick, the actors are funny and the final gag is pretty ingenious. But something is not right here. This ad features a number of professional actors including three especially awesome writers/actors who, over the years have played countless characters on Conan O’Brian’s various talk shows. (they’re the big lady, the red headed instigator and the guy in the wrestling shorts) So when I first saw Office Break I assumed that it was made by someone who works on the staff of the Conan O’Brian’s show. Or maybe even the ENTIRE Conan staff and crew. But it wasn’t. Turns out this spot was created by a filmmaker named Kevin Wilson. Last year, his CTSB entry “Casket” made it to the Doritos finals and aired during the Super Bowl. Since the creators of this spot don’t have anything to do with Conan (the show) I think it was inappropriate to cast so many recognizable members of Conan’s staff. It gives the false impression that Conan or his team wrote and filmed this spot. If this ad airs during the super bowl, tens of millions of people will jump to the same conclusions that I did…and that includes any die-hard Conan fans that might happen to be in USA Today’s Ad Meter focus group. Who knows, maybe Conan himself okayed this but regardless, it comes across as a calculated attempt to imply something about the people who wrote this ad that isn’t true.
MAXIMUM BORGNINE. Ok so first off, this ad looks like a million bucks. Plus holy F%&$! That’s Ernest Borgine! And that guy from Baseketball and Orgazmo! How in world did they get those guys to be in a Crash the Super Bowl entry!? Color me hella impressed. However….if Pepsi selects this ad for the finals they will basically be throwing the entire Crash The Super Bowl concept out the window. Yes, I’m serious. If this entry had an anonymous old man in it every one would just dismiss it as yet another “old person gone wild” type of video. Other than the top-notch production values the only thing that makes this spot special is that the old guy running around screaming is a celebrity. And if Pepsi cared about having celebrities in their ads they wouldn’t be seeking out “User Generated content.” If this ad gets to the finals, Pepsi and Doritos will essentially be telling the thousands of low budget filmmakers who enter the contest every year “This is what it takes to win; a celebrity.” And there’s no way the Borgnine spot would NOT make it to the Super Bowl. After all, it’d be the only Crash the Super Bowl entry that the media would care about. But you know what viewers will think when the spot airs? They’ll think “what are they doing, trying to do their own version of the Betty White Snickers ad?”
ALIEN. Ok, enough of my jealous bitching. Let’s end on a happy note. This spot is called Alien and it is my personal favorite out of all 1460 Pepsi Max submissions. I won’t spoil the surprise but the first joke in this video cracks me up every time I see it. In fact, this is one of the only Pepsi Max entries that actually made me laugh out loud. I also think it’s a perfect example of true “User-Generated” content. You get the feeling that these two dudes were sitting around one day drinking Pepsi Max when they came up with this idea. Then they grabbed a camera and a cucumber and went outside to film the thing. It goes to show that you can literally spend zero dollars on your ad but if the script is funny you’ll get noticed. If you’ve watched Alien you’re probably going to guess that I’m going to say the video quality isn’t good enough for tv. Pshhht. Forget video quality. A good colorist could make this ad tv-ready in a single session. No the problem here is the news broadcast that the bearded guy is listening to at the start of the ad. That’s part of Orson Well’s infamous 1938 War of the World’s Broadcast! So…that’ll probably will hinder their chances a bit.
Ok folks, that’s our list. Like I said I did work on one of the above videos so take everything I’ve said here with a grain of salt. Now before anyone asks, no I will not be doing a list like this for the Doritos entries. If I tried to watch any more CTSB entries my brain would melt. And for the record, if your video didn’t make our Top 30 list it does NOT mean it wasn’t any good. It just means that it didn’t fit my cockamamie theories about what the Crash the Super Bowl judges will be looking for. If you want to yell at me or if you want to post your own list of favorite entries, please do so in the comments.
Posted in 
Tags: 
Just a reminder folks, if this is your first time posting a comment on our site, your comment is automatically held for moderation. So your comment will appear as soon as I have a chance to approve it.
Great list. It would be interesting to see these narrowed down from here. Are you going to make a tighter list before the January announcement?
Great list! Of your 30, my favorites are LAUNCH PAD, NO COUNTRY CLUB FOR OLD MEN, THROWING PEPSI and THIRD WISH.
I also LOVED one that you didn’t include called BIRDIE:
http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/#/gallery/?video=6811
It’s super weird and makes me giggle. They don’t play commercials like that on TV, and that’s the very reason I love it.
Also, that WHISTLE TO THE MAX ad is gorgeous!! Would love to know what they shot on.
Additionally, here’s our Doritos ad for anyone who cares.
http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/#/gallery/?video=3156
Thanks Beardy!
I watched all 30 entries. Are you sure these are the best of the best? I didn’t see one “Home Run” on the list.
I’ll admit that we fell into the land of physical humor based upon what has won in the past, what was in the “Tips” section and what we thought was genuinely funny. We also understood that pure physical humor was not the end all be all of a great spot.
That being said, I’m interested in your (and others) view of our spot.
http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/#/gallery?video=8383
Nolsen,
Your entry was kind of funny and the voice over is very good. The idea of a little person dressed as a baby is played out and probably would offend a few people.
Matthew,
RE: Narrowing the list down. I might post my 5 predictions for the top 5 the day before the official announcement is supposed to happen. I’ve got my predictions in my head but they’re staying in there for now.
Noslen– My opinion is that you have a pretty funny spot. And it’s shot beautifully. The negative here, in my opinion is it the physical humor does seem a bit forced. The thing about the “nut shot” that we all love so much is when we don’t see it coming. That’s the problem that I have with “tool fight”. It’s beautiful, but the concept was created, in my opinion so they could simply knock the snot out of each other as much as possible for 30 seconds. Now this isn’t really what they did, but the Herbert bros. believe so strongly that this strategy will work that they gave us as much physical comedy as they could in 30 seconds. Maybe they’re right. The beauty of “free doritos” that they won with, is that you didn’t see the “nut shot” coming, so it was marvelous. Thus a million bucks. Nice spot you have. And remember, just because it isn’t on this list doesn’t mean it’s not on others.
I like some of your choices but I think the Pepsi Max crew are looking for something different than doritos. You can put any other soda or energy drink in almost anyone of these ads and it would fit. The key is 0 calories and it taste just like the regular Pepsi. These ads are funny, but nothing else. But we will see on Jan 3rd.
Sorry to burst your bubble Beardy but Pepsi will wind up picking all big budget videos just like doritos did last year. I’d even bet that 3 of your 5 non-contender contenders will get to the finals.
The winners will be
Launch Pad
Office Break
Tool Fight
Maximum Borgnine
The Choice
It sucks that those aren;t the funnies ads but they are the most expensive looking and those are the ads that doritos likes. I learned this lesson last year and didn’t bother entering this year. I’m glad I didn’t because I wouldnt have a prayer of winning against some of this entries. The guy who did the one in africa spent probably $10,000 to shoot his entry but he wasn’t even smart enough to read the rules first! What does that tell you about filmmakers who have money to burn?
History is going to repeat itself. The real “little guys” are going to be ignored and the big guys who already have money and careers are going to come out on top again.
Joe Herbert here… Pepsi does have their own judges different from Doritos, but what I can tell you is that funny and original (as long as production is better than average) will beat out high production quality that isn’t as funny or original every day of the week.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I must say I have my own list that I kept, and most of my top 5 (and top 10) didn’t even make your top 25 beardy, and you have several on your list that I won’t even put in my top 100.
And no I won’t say which ones don’t belong here (out of respect), nor will I say which ones are missing that are better than most listed here, but it just goes to show you how difficult of a job the judges have ahead of them.
The one thing we can all agree on is there is more than 5 good ones, so great spots will miss the top 5. Something that we can all expect is the unexpected as well, meaning something will make the top 5 that you (and I) didn’t expect to make it… so count on that as well.
Good luck to everyone.
mememe1 is correct in his statement above.
Joe and mememe1: Lets take a look at the last 2 years winners on the Doritos side. Your “free doritos” and then “underdog” Neither spot had anything to do with the great taste or the crunch of Doritos. You could have put any chip in there. So I think the argument that this spot has to be about zero calories is invalid. They gave everyone a giant super that most used that takes 3 seconds that says zero calories, maximum pepsi taste. The key here is to be memorable. And tie Pepsi Max to that memory. That’s what Free Doritos and Underdog did. They are memorable, and not because the talk about the features, attributes and benefits of a product.
I believe this year the market has been saturated with physical humor spots. They’re funny, but can become tiresome if overdone. We, as amateur commercial makers, have seen and critiqued so many spots that it has become increasingly hard to separate the standouts. We’re looking for that awesome moment, but see the same gag over and over again, diluting our reactions.
Which is why I think our Dorito spot has been so well liked by people over our Pepsi Max spot.
http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/#/gallery?video=7172
When we started getting reactions from family and friends (highly biased) as well as random word of mouth people (friend of a friend of a friend of a…), our Dorito spot wins almost every time. This coming from people who haven’t watched thousands of videos on the contest website.
Just goes to show how the market shifts and the reason ad campaigns are so difficult to pull off.
Beardy, I think you let the site of a pretty girl cloud your judgment. The first shot in “Dog Gone” is too hot for TV. They could never show that much ass on the super bowl. The ad would get rejected.
Otherwise, decent list.
I don’t like “The Best Salesman”
Mike T. I agree with you on the opening shot. I actually think it is a super funny spot, but they didn’t even need that opening shot. If that weren’t there, they would have a much better shot.
On the list. I think we could all blow this list up just like we blow up lists by Rolling Stone as to the top songs of all time. I think there are a bunch of spots worthy to be on this list that are not here as well. This is one mans opinion that does understand this contest. So there is some validity to it. That does not mean that the winner is listed here, though.
If I were judging, I would have to say and I haven’t seen every single spot yet that most of the top 5 appear to be in this list of 30.
If I were picking 5 from this list, in no particular order: Launch Pad, Who Wants One, No Country Club for Old Men, Throwing Pepsi and Dog Gone.
But who knows. That’s what makes this all so great! We’ll see.
Let’s keep it simple and ask everyone who their top 5 favorites from this list are.
Mine: (in no order)
The Wrestler
Office Break
No Country Club
Launch Pad
Throwing Pepsi
Mike t.
That’s a hard point to argue with. If Godaddy ads get rejected every year because they feature a girl dancing in a tank top then an extreme C.U. of a girl’s short shorts are probably crossing the line too.
To everyone who’s commented and e-mailed:
As matthew just said, this list is just one man’s opinion. But I want to reiterate that this is not a list of my “favorite” entries. In fact, I personally don’t like many of the entries on this list. But they made the top 30 because I suspect they will go very far in Pepsi’s internal discussions about which videos should win.
I based a lot of my ideas about what doritos and pepsi are looking for this year on the press conference/launch video “kicking off the Crash” that’s on the CTSB site. If you haven’t watched the whole thing and if you care about this contest, you should check it out (you can skip the betty white stuff.)
http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/#/tips-and-tricks
If you’re wondering why ads like Alien and Don’t Waste it made my list it’s because of what EVERYONE who has a say in which video wins said they would be looking for this year in the launch video. They said that low-budget ads have gotten very far in the judging in the past. One of the guys from Goodby, Silverstein actually said he felt that video can be hurt by looking too slick. And here’s a Q&A exchange between a person in the audience and the head of the Doritos contest:
AUDIENCE QUESTION: “One of things we low-budget filmmakers struggle with is budget and camera quality…I know that in theory, low-budget is ok but I’ve noticed that a lot of the winners have a very polished, professional look and they use the RED camera or they shoot on film…do you think getting a RED or shooting on film (both very expensive things to do) could create a better image and help a video be a winner?”
ANSWER: “I can tell you from a judging standpoint…obviously we have the agency come in (an ad firm helps narrow down the list of finalists) and the brand people evaluate it as well (but) we’ve never even had that conversation…around whether or not something looks…what do you call it, the RED camera? I couldn’t even tell you what that is. You could walk up here with 5 cameras and I couldn’t (tell you which one was a RED.) But what I can tell you is if it makes us laugh, you’ve got a chance. We’re really, truly opening this up for people that don’t have the opportunity, and we understand that when we say you don’t have the opportunity you might not have all the tools. So we’re very open to looking at the gamut of quality. So do your thing…we’ll support it.”
And don’t forget the actual judging criteria for the contest:
* Originality and Creativity – 40%
* Adherence to Creative Assignment – 30%
* Overall Appeal – 30%
Production quality is not on the list. (though I’m sure it could fall under “overall appeal.”)
Last year, all 6 doritos finalists looked like professionally made spots. I think that turned some people off and I think that Doritos and Pepsi will each pick at least one “token” low-budget spot this year. I think they kind of have to. Look at what happened in the godaddy contest; For the first contest they got 500 entries and picked all very slick winners. For their next contest, all the mid-level producers didn’t bother to enter because they figured they had no shot. So Godaddy got about 200 entries and most of them were terrible. They were so bad that 3 of the 8 winners were winners from the first contest. They were some of the only people who wanted to spend money and time on the contest.
If the Crash the Super Bowl contest is going to come back next year, they’re going to have to pick a low budget spot or two this year. They have 10 spots and only have to worry about 4 videos getting enough votes to make it to air. I suspect will see at least one low budget, out of no where finalist for each product.
Did you know that not all entries have been uploaded to the site yet? We just received a notice that we had 24hrs to re-upload due to encoding errors. And I’ve seen new ones added every day.
David,
Wow. I’ve been checking the gallery every day and no new entries have popped up…until today. Now there are about 20 new ones. I just watched them and none would have made the list. If I see a really amazing entry I’ll add it.
Eight days after the deadline is really late for them to be adding “last minute” entries that might have had upload problems. I’m guessing they want to get all this wrapped up before thanksgiving though.
I am the maker of “Dog Gone” – it was an all female effort (all three of us – myself, my DP and my actress). Regarding the opening shot, I think the difference with ours compared to banned commercials (godaddy etc) is that she is not doing anything suggestive in ours – she is not a stripper, she is not dancing on a bar, she is not putting on a show etc. We never thought that it would be an issue as you don’t see anything more than you do watching cheerleaders at a professional football game. That being said, it is an interesting point that people have brought up – I really thought if there was going to be any discussion over this piece that it would be about the burping! Just goes to show you never know huh!
Here are my top five with comments.
The Guru—the only spot that really sells the idea that there are no calories that you would have to work off.
Join Hands for Peace—-slick production. The only problem is that the product at the end could be anything.
Ref Dad——great idea for the Super Bowl, but I remember a similar ad for something else a few years ago.
Product Placement—very funny, and well done. the tag line could have been stronger, but still my top five.
Spacebook—-a spot i worked on. A short story with a funny ending.
Other great ideas:
Grandma’s Pepsi Max—funny idea, but poorly executed. Wish I had thought of it.
Girls vs Guys——-another great idea for the Super Bowl. Really nothing wrong with it. Could be top five.
Maximum Borgnine—I really like seeing Earnest Borgnine. However, the spot is not funny, and he refers to Pepsi Max as Pepsi twice, which is a rules violation. I guess they could change it before airing it, or are they allowed to?
Beardy,
We just received notice from the moderator that our spot will not be available in the gallery until Monday the 29th. I’m not claiming ours will be a contender by any means. Just thought you should know there will be more coming.
You guys want a more accurate top five ask people who have NOTHING to do with filmmaking. Filmmakers tend to like different things than the general public. Average Joe’s don’t care about which ones are most polished, and as long as the quality is good enough and doesn’t detract it don’t matter. Even moreso in today’s YouTube society… and more importantly, non-filmmakers aren’t into special effects as much as most of you and anyone in filmmaking is. They aren’t impressed at all by special effects and if it’s cheesy in the least bit it will actually detract from it. Even more so if you remove the special effects and the concept is still good, then it’s a good concept WITH a special effect, but many spots you guys like are simply special effects with no concept other than hey lets make some cool effect. Show you favorites to a group of people who have nothing to do with filmmaking or the filmmaking industry if you want a REAL assessment, and that assessment just might surprise you.
ok, so what are the top 5 smart guy???
anybody can pick 30 and say they are in here somewhere.
Wow, jeez david. I think narrowing 1460 videos down to 30 potential winners was an admirable feat.
Please feel free to post your own top 5 favorites though.
I 100% agree with Joe’s last comment. Any sponsor can have amazing CGI in their ads. All they have to do is PAY for it. (same thing goes for celebrities or big effects or expensive cameras) But funny ideas are priceless. You can give a team of filmmakers a million bucks and they’ll be able to produce a video with effects on par with Avatar. But if you give the same team a million bucks and say “write me the funniest commercial of the 2011 super bowl” you’re probably going to be disappointed by the results. Here’s an entry that more than one person has recommended to me:
http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/#/gallery?video=2088
Yeah that’s a pretty sweet spaceship but that same joke has been done a million times before. So CGI doesn’t mean anything if the script isn’t going to make viewers laugh out loud.
Beardy,
I understand everybody’s desire to hear a professional opinion about their work.
I already got very valuable one from Joe Herbert and would love to hear yours as well.
Thanks in advance.
http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/#/gallery?video=534
I agree Beardy, story is everything…but special effects doesn’t take away from the story. It can add to the story depending on the story/concept you tell.
An audience still likes to be wowed. Judging by Doritos other competition called King of Ads, it appears the audience liked special effects enough to vote two entries into the top 15. One of them was the overall winner of the competition!
Blast’em (top 15)
http://www.youtube.com/user/doritoskingofads#p/f/5/pCzeCC6N57I
Attack on Westminster – Craig Young (#1 in the contest)
http://www.youtube.com/user/doritoskingofads#p/f/6/KJlz4X5EdlM
It is all about good story and concept, I don’t want people to feel they shouldn’t try animation, special effects to tell a great story. I for one enjoy watching them. Now if the story isn’t good…it doesn’t matter. A story without special effects but with a lame joke or bad story line is still terrible.
Just my opinion.
Beardy,
You mentioned having a list of your top 60. Mind posting that list as just text? Interested to see those as well. Thanks!
Joe t.
First off, I added a “t” to your name so people don’t confuse you with the other joe in this thread. Hope you don’t mind.
About the “king of ads” contest. I’ve come to realize that pretty much every single vote based contest is won by people who vote for themselves. I’ve seen it happen pretty much 100% of the time. It happens so much that I don’t even blame the cheaters any more. It’s the sponsors fault for not running a secure contest. So you should take the results of the King of ads contest with a grain of salt.
The final audience for CTSB ads will be super bowl viewers. Other commercials that run during the game will have millions of dollars worth of FX. So an ad wtih homemade effects of CG might seem cool online, but it will almost always pale when compared to the big budget stuff that it would run with. So I think filmmakers’ best bet is to just concentrate on a funny story and leave the FXs to the pros.
Matt G,
I was thinking of doing some honorable mentions but I’m pretty burnt out on the CTSB contest. So I probably won’t do any more pepsi lists. We’ll be doing lots of Crash news in the next 2 months so I think i should pace myself.
Alex,
The idea of your ad is kinda cool and the story progresses in a nice way. The spot does have some cons though. The biggest issue is that I don’t understand the ending. The arm coming out of the sky is funny but then the stock crashes? I presume that’s because the bottle is empty. I had to watch the ad 5 times before I realized that the stock price went back to normal by the end of the ad. All I saw the first few times was a huge red line on the graph going down. It looks like you’re trying to say that Pepsi’s stock has crashed and it’s now worthless.
I appreciate any funny video regardless of its production values. But some ideas are better served by being presented in a slicker manner. Your ad would be one of those. Because your story unravels slowly, the viewer will want to look at something nice as they wait for the pay off. So this is one case where good lighting and a nicer camera would improve the experience for the viewer.
You also included something in your entry which you should never include in a commercial; white walls. White walls are one of the key signs that a video wasn’t professionally made. I know it might sound crazy to paint you walls for a commercial but if you want a serious shot, you have to do it.
Check out this winning entry from last year’s CTSB contest, House Rules:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0EVSP_6XZA
It also develops slowly. The end is funny but it had a colorful set and high production values to tide the audience over until the punchline.
Here is a spot from my buddies that in my opinion makes 28 of the 30 look like amateur hour. I really like “love hurts and “office war” but other then those 2 I didn’t laugh 1 time at the others. A superbowl ad is suppose to be funny right????!!!
Anyway here is theirs which should be a top 5. And don’t comment it will get DQ’d for the guns cause they are not guns they are pepsi cans and the ad was pre-approved by the moderator they told me.
Its called “Product Placement” and it looks like another blogger on here Patrick felt the same way.
http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/#/gallery/?video=5092
Thanks Beardy!!
Ryan,
First off, you might want to hold off on doing any more promotion for your friends. You’re probably doing them more harm than good. Declaring their ad should be in the top 5 and calling 28 of the best pepsi submissions “amateur hour” isn’t the best way to gain supporters.
As for the gun issue, I noticed that pepsi ok’d tons of videos that violate the rules of the contest. I suspect they did this because it was way easier to do that than to deal with hundreds of complaints from people who didn’t read the rules. If pepsi/doritos actually picked an entry that broke the rules, the other contestants would flip. So it does no harm for them to add invalid entries to the gallery but they could never actually pick those entries. Product Placement might have been “pre-approved” but the rules state that entries can not feature “Firearms or Ammunition.” The guns may be pepsi cans but they are shooting ammunition. Maybe you can argue that we never actually see the bullets and only see the carnage they leave behind. But if the sponsors went so far as to say “no guns or ammo” that probably means they are not interested in ads with gunfire in them.
Product Placement breaks the rules in a few more obvious ways though. Pepsi/doritos was adamant that all sound effects had to be original and only music provided by the sponsors could be used. In the “dramatic” scene in Product Placement I heard a song I didn’t recognize from the asset tray. And the gunfire effects almost certainly came from a sound effects library.
But even if I’m wrong about all these issues, I still wouldn’t consider this ad a contender because it doesn’t do a good job of promoting the product. This could be an ad for diet coke or sprite or canned beef stew. The gags are the star of this spot, not the product and that’s a problem.
Sorry for the harsh, unsolicited review. But your amateur hour crack was uncalled for. You can promote your entry without telling me I have sucky taste and bashing what a lot of people would consider some of the strongest entries in the competition.
Thanks for posting our spot “Join Hands for Peace” – http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/#/gallery/?video=5750. We’re glad you liked it.
These are, for the most part, really good. I do disagree that the Herbert Brothers will not be considered equally. They’re good. They just are. They did the research and know what Doritos/Pepsi is looking for. Tool fight is a solid, solid ad. I can see your point that it will look like insider baseball, but I would also argue that it would in some ways be really interesting if the Herbert’s got in again. Plus this year part of the prize is a contract, and who better to get that than the guys who sort of started all the hype?
I also think Office Break will make it.
Here are my top 5 in no order.
Office Break, Tool Fight, Love Hurts, Either The Wrestler OR Third Wish (they like to do one zany one), and The Choice.
Between these ads they hit all the bases. Office Break and Tool Fight look great, have a variety of different people, and are really funny.
“Love Hurts” has one huge advantage that “House Rules” had last year – namely it’s the only spot in the bunch that really features a traditional minority group as it’s main talent. Much of this contest are commercials made by, for, and with white people – and this country is a much more diverse place than that. Doritos values diversity and I think gives ads like this extra consideration and rightly so. This is not to say that this is the reason that this ad will be a finalist though. It’s also really well done, funny, and gets zero calories message across loud and clear. I think that combined with the fact that it represents more than just white people will really solidify this one as a finalist.
“The Wrestler” and “Third Wish” are right up my alley – in my opinion, the funniest two, but I love strange, zany humor – most of America doesn’t so much, but the people that love it, LOVE IT. If you look at most years, the really odd ones don’t do as well, even though they are arguably hilarious.
All of the aforementioned have some point of violence too, which Doritos loves. Almost all of their finalists spots, in all years, have some sort of violence – even if it’s implied. I guess Casket last year didn’t really have any, but the rest did. I think that will help the above.
The only that doesn’t have a violent part is “The Choice”, but “The Choice” again has a “House Rules” / “Underdog” advantage – a cute kid or animal. This is middle America we’re playing to, not just a traditional Doritos demographic. “The Choice” is appealing for the same reason that both those spots were last year and that is heavily reliant on the idea that many, many, many people watch the Super Bowl and many, many, many people don’t collectively have the tastes that we (meaning the film-making community) have necessarily. They like simple, easy concepts with “cute” stuff in them. The kid doing chin-ups in this is just that. It’s this cute image that everyone will “get” – some because it’s an actual funny image, but even more because they’ll be thinking “that’s adorable” or “a cute kid, how cute?” or whatever.
Anyway. Those are my predictions. In the history of the contest the Herbert’s have been finalists twice, and so have the guys who did “Underdog” AND the one where the old guy gets tazed last year (So I guess they’ve been finalists 3 times actually). The Herbert’s were finalists 2 of the 5 years, the other guys were finalists 2 of the 5, but a DIFFERENT 2 of the 5. So in a total of 5 years there have 4 times where there have been “repeat” finalists (yes, I know this counts their first years as “repeat”, but they ARE in retrospect, if you see what I’m saying). My point is, it’s got a history of picking people who’ve already won as finalists again. So I wouldn’t count those fellas out.
My two (okay eight) cents.
atariatari,
Thanks for the comment. I have to say, your predictions are really close to my own. I’ve been thinking about it and I do now think the herbert brothers are going to make it. I think the “story” of the guys who won the doritos contest having a shot at winning the pepsi max contest will be too good for pepsi to pass up.
I’ll be posting my predictions for the pepsi top 5 next week so everybody stay tuned.
You guys are setting us up for a BIG let down, so thanks for that. lol.