DORITOS: They’re exploding with flavor!
Dortios is scheduled to announce the details of the 2012-2013 Crash the Superbowl contest during a webcast on Crashthesuperbowl.com at 8PM EST on Wednesday, September 19th. But a few hours ago, USA Today spoiled the surprise and blabbed about all the stuff that Doritos was going to reveal tomorrow night. So…SPOILER ALERT: If you want to wait another 20 hours to hear some specifics about this year’s contest, look away now!
Ok, nobody really wants to wait until the webcast, right? Good. Here are the basic facts about the 2013 Crash the Super Bowl contest:
1. Doritos is the only brand involved in the contest this year.
2. FIVE finalists will be selected in January.
3. The public will vote and TWO winning ads will air during the Super Bowl.
4. If your ad scores the #1 spot on the USA Today ad meter you win a million dollar bonus.
None of those facts are especially shocking. All those things pretty much happen every year. But there are two NEW pieces of big news to report:
1. If you make the finals and if your ad is the highest ranked Doritos commercial of the game you’ll will win a chance to work with Michael Bay on the next Transformers movie. What kind of job you would have isn’t clear yet. I doubt you’ll be a producer or anything but hopefully this will be an actual, meaty job where you can get real on-set experience. It would really suck if the winner was just a glorified PA. I think the dream position would be as a second unit director. If the winner got to direct a few action shots they could get into the DGA and they’d have an instant career in the film industry. That would be a hell of a good prize.
2. This year Doritos is going to try and involve non-filmmakers in the contest. They will be encouraging people to offer up their homes, pets etc. to producers who are shooting entries for the contest. This will happen via a special section on Doritos’ facebook page.
That’s all the news I’ve got to report right as of 11:00PM on the 18th. I will update this post after the webcast tomorrow night!
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POST-WEBCAST UPDATE: It’s Wednesday night and I just watched the big CTSB webcast announcement. Basically it was just a pre-recorded video that featured the guy in charge of the Crash, Jeff Klein and Michael Bay. Bay took Klein on a little tour of his production offices and they talked a tiny bit about strategy. I only learned one bit of new info from the video; Michael Bay will be one of the official Crash the Super Bowl judges this year. Personally, I think that’s fantastic news. I know that a lot of CTSB fans (myself included) are unhappy that the same people and ideas wind up winning this contest every year. So maybe Bay will help Doritos make some bolder and more unique choices this time. The full webcast is now online and you can watch it .
After the webcast ended, CrashtheSuperbowl.com disappeared! It now looks like the entire contest WILL take place on facebook! Yes, Crashthesuperbowl.com is dead and gone. Just a few minutes ago, Doritos changed their facebook page. It now looks like this:
BOOM.
When you click on that Crash the Super Bowl tab it takes you to a “Get Started” page. I’m sort of amazed that the contest is really going to be just a gigantic facebook app this year but I did totally call it! It’s really a brilliant move on fritolay’s part. For the next 4 months, millions of facebook feeds will be clogged with links to Crash the Super Bowl entries. When you upload your submission I bet all of your facebook friends will automatically see a link. If an average of 5 people are involved with every CTSB submission and if they each have an average of 150 facebook friends and if 6,000 people enter the contest this year (same as last year) that means Crash the Superbowl entries will probably show up in the newsfeeds of about 4.5 million people!!! The amount of free advertising Doritos will get out of this move boggles the mind!
The official rules are now live and on facebook. Here are the key details you need to know:
1. The contest opens on OCTOBER 8th. The deadline for entries is NOVEMBER 16th.
2. There will be a star-rating system “for entertainment purposes only.”
3. A public vote will choose 1 of the 5 commercials that will air during the big game.
4. A panel of judges will choose a second commercial to air too.
5. The finalist prizes are the same as last year; $25,000 and a trip for 2 to the Super Bowl.
6. The USA Today ad meter prizes are back too. If your ad lands in the #1, #2 or #3 spot on the ad meter you’ll win a bonus of $1,000,000, $600,000, or $400,000.
7. There is NO million dollar bonus for an ad that is ranked #1 on the FACEBOOK ad meter poll. Doritos did this last year and the makers of the ad “Sling Baby” managed to win the online vote. But they won because they had a small army of fans give bad scores to the other ads in the competition. It was really uncool and I’m guessing that’s why the facebook vote got scrapped this year. It was just too easy to manipulate the results.
8. If you win and take the Transformers 4 gig you’ll get an extra $50,000.
You can read all the fine print for yourself here:
This year I’m going to attempt to watch as many CTSB entries as possible and then I’ll post my favorite entries. If you shoot an ad, be sure to send me a link. GOOD LUCK, EVERYBODY!!
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Of all the filmmakers in the world they could have picked, why did they pick micahel bay? ug. I don’t want to watch Transformers 4 let alone help make it.
Well bummer! I just found out through the official rules that Doritos does NOT allow original music in the CTSB entries.
Only trouble is, is that they are a bit ambiguous about this rule:
“Use of any unauthorized music in your Submission may result in disqualification of Submission, in Sponsor’s sole discretion.”
“MAY result….”-it doesn’t say “WILL result……”
Which one is it?
“In Sponsor’s sole discretion..”
So, you could still send in your entry with original music that MIGHT (not WILL) get disqualified, and Dorito’s could decide to let it through anyways? OR STILL pull a 180 and scratch your entry.
WAY firmer language is needed here Doritos, so that there is NO question about what is required…
Meanwhile, here’s my spec commercial that I did earlier this year with *original* music:
Thanks for listening…..
“Every time a twenty dollar, homemade commercial like “Man’s Best Friend” beats Madison Avenue’s multi-million dollar commercials, the entire ad industry looks bad.”
Then maybe the Ad Industry should start looking for fresh talent that is being put on the internet constantly, instead of rejecting everyone on the grounds of “no solicitations allowed”.
Madison Avenue is way behind the game, just like the record industry was and they need to realize that there’s more than a few websites that are allowing independent artists to strut their stuff for heavy cash awards AND some badly needed fun! One by one, well known and not so well known brands and products are realizing that when it comes to apples, it’s better to pick from the tree instead of the barrel.
Arne,
I would really, really, really recommend you to NOT use original music in your entry. Doritos has never picked a video that used original music. If you use original music you will probably not get disqualified but your video probably won’t get far in the judging. You should play it safe and use the music that Doritos is providing.
Beardy,
Are you saying that Doritos has never picked a video with original music because they *passed it over* or because they *disqualified* it because of their ambiguous rules? That state of confusion still remains, at least for me, until they firm up their rules language, one way or the other.
I don’t have friends with cameras and other cool toys like these other entrants, which is why my effort mostly lies in writing the copy and score.Throwing it all together in Windows Live Movie Maker is easy, but sometimes, coming up with a near perfect idea can be like pulling teeth!
BTW Beardy, Kudos to the coolest site I’ve run into in quite some time-It’s a very cool place and you are quite the investigative writer!
Ame, stop complaining, go rent a camera, grab some friends, make an entry. You know full well that entry link you posted isn’t going to win. Invest some time, learn a little editing from some youtube videos, learn a little lighting, give it 100% and see what you come up with.
Joel,
I never claimed the link provided was an *entry* for this years contest-I was just putting it out there as an example of what CAN be done with original music.
One of these days I’d LOVE to get my “video thang” together, put out an ad for some new friends and go shoot up a storm, but at the present, music is the item that occupies my time (and money)so, I’ve made my choice. I thought I could help other people, music-wise, with their ads, but no.
I do have a really good idea for a commercial, but it also depends on totally original music fitting it like a glove-it just won’t work with Doritos *canned*, homogenized music. Trust me when I tell you this, because there’s just no WAY it could work.
Did you ever see the Star Wars trailer that had canned music on it?
That’s what I’m talking about.
Btw, I really did do the music for the spec spot on a Casio!
Thanks for the breaking news Beardy!
Awesome!