In the last few weeks I’ve gotten a bajillion e-mails and comments from readers all asking the same thing:  When will Doritos notify the winners of the Crash the Super Bowl contest?  So I thought I’d do a quick post and try and answer the question.  Doritos doesn’t like to talk about when and how the CTSB finalists are contacted but here are a few facts to consider:

1.  The rules of the 2012 CTSB contest say that winners will be notified within 6 weeks of the submission deadline.  Since the deadline was November 21st, that means that Fritolay must contact the finalists by January 2nd.  But voting begins on January 4th so there’s no way they can wait that long.

2.  I’ve talked to a lot of past finalists and it seems like Doritos called all of them just a few days before Christmas; usually around December 23rd.

3.  But…this installment of the Crash the Superbowl contest was launched much later than normal.  So there’s a chance that the contest timeline is a little off this year.

4.  Recently, I interviewed one of last year’s Pepsi Max CTSB finalists and he said he was contacted by Pepsi just 3 or 4 days before the results were made public.  But the pepsi contest was run by a different set of judges.  However, thanks to social networking sites like facebook, twitter etc, these days it would be very easy for the news about who won to leak out.  So maybe doritos will adopt Pepsi’s tactic and contact finalists at the last minute to minimize leaks.

5.  Of course, literally notifying the winners at the last minute isn’t really possible.  Fritolay will have a lot of paper work for the winners (and their actors) to fill out like tax Forms, release forms, location releases and SAG paperwork.  The rules say that all that paperwork must be “received by Sponsor no later than three (3) days after notification of being a Finalist.”

6.  But I don’t think they’ll wait just 3 days before the deadline.  The rules actually state that potential finalists may be required to submit to a background check if Fritolay requests one.  (Guess it would be pretty embarrassing if a sex offender created Doritos’ Super Bowl commercial.)  Doritos will probably need at least a week to vet the potential finalists if they decide to do a basic background check on any or all of them.

So if I had to take a guess I would say that the finalists were probably contacted TODAY.  If they weren’t then I would say that tomorrow has got to be Doritos’ last chance.  If they wait any longer they’re just cutting it too close.  So if you don’t get a call by wednesday. December 28th I think it’s safe to say that you didn’t make the cut.

But whatever happens, we’ll all know the results on the morning on January 4th.  Be sure to visit VCN that day to read reviews of all the finalists and to let us know what you think about Doritos’ picks.  Good luck, everybody!

 

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