UPDATE:  I wrote this post last night a few hours before this year’s Crash the Super Bowl was officially announced.  I used a USA Today article and the official rules of the 2012 CTSB contest as my source.  But today I got an e-mail from a rep from Fritolay that explained that some very important prizes had been left out of the rules.  Most notably, all 5 finalists will be getting a free trip to the Super Bowl and there will be prizes if a winning ad scores the number 2 or number 3 spot on the USA Today ad meter!  That’s awesome news.  Based on the official rules, it looked like Doritos totally gutted the contest this year.  This post has been updated to include the new details….

The Crash the Super Bowl contest is back and this year, it’s smaller than ever!! Wait….what?  Smaller?  Yep, I’m sorry to say that for the first time ever, Doritos has actually scaled back on the size of their annual commercial contest.  The big surprise is that Pepsi Max will NOT be a part of the contest this year.  So if you want to compete, your only option is to shoot a Doritos commercial.  Here are some more important points about this year’s contest:

1.  Judges will pick 5 finalists.  Last year there were ten; 5 for Doritos and 5 for Pepsi Max.

2.  Each finalist will receive $25,000 and a trip to the Super Bowl.  Same as last year.

3.  Only ONE finalist commercial is guaranteed to air during the Super Bowl.  Last year SIX ads aired.  (three from each brand)

4.  The finalist video that will air during the game will be determined by a PUBLIC VOTE.

5.  If the winning ad scores the number one spot on the USA Today Ad Meter, the filmmaker will win a Million Dollar Bonus.

6.  If the winning ad scores the second spot on the ad meter the filmmaker will win $600,000.  The number three spot gets you $400,000.  Again, same as last year.

7.  There will NOT be a bonus if three Doritos ads take all three spots on the ad meter….presumably because only 2 Doritos ads are guaranteed to air.  One spot will be made by professionals but I bet they’ll wind up airing at least 2 consumer-made commercials.

8.  If the winning ad scores below 15th place on the ad meter, the head of marketing for Frito-lay gets to punch the filmmaker in the junk.

Ok, that last one was obviously fake.  But this new mini-CTSB contest does kind of feel like a punch in the junk, doesn’t it?  To go from airing SIX consumer-generated ads in 2011 to airing just ONE in 2012 is a real let down.  So why is Dortios running a smaller version of what has always been an incredibly popular and successful promotion?  I can answer that question in just three words:  THE LONELY ISLAND.  The comedy/music/internet sensation is going to be a part of this year’s Crash the Super Bowl contest.  In fact, their participation is what makes this the “Hollywood Edition” of the Crash.  The Lonely Island guys (Andy Sandburg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer) will also be producing a Doritos commercial and it will also air during the 2012 Super Bowl.  But here’s where it gets weird;  the Lonely Island guys are kind of IN the Crash the Super Bowl contest.  By that I mean that they will be competing for the 1st place spot on the ad meter and if they get it, they will win the million dollar bonus!  But they don’t get to keep it.  If they win the million bucks they’re donating it to charity.  But Doritos is apparently going to play up the “little guy vs. Hollywood” angle here.  If you ask me, it’s not even a remotely fair fight though.  If the folks in the ad meter poll know that the Lonely Island team would donate their million dollar bonus to charity that will give them a huge advantage.

There is a little bit of good news though.  The winner of the Crash the Super Bowl contest will be given the chance to “apprentice” with the Lonely Island team and shoot a new Doritos commercial with them in 2012.  If the winner chooses to accept the apprenticeship (who wouldn’t) they would get a bonus of $25,000.  So that would be pretty sweet, I guess.

So anyway….yeah.  That’s why we’re getting a mini-Crash in 2012.  I love Lonely Island and their involvement is the only thing that could motivate me to enter this year’s Crash.  But still, the details of this new mini-CTSB contest are kind of a bummer.  Last year Doritos alone got about 5,000 entries for this contest.  So without Pepsi Max in the mix, Doritos will probably get 7,000 submissions this time.  And even if you make the finals, you still have to win a public vote!  The odds here are just unfathomably bad.

So personally, I think I might just have to watch this one play out from the sidelines.  That should still be pretty entertaining though.  Or maybe I’ll enter just for the fun of it.  I don’t know.  Either way, for the next four months we’re going to be giving the contest a lot of coverage so be sure to check in from time to time to see how things are going.  And if you shoot an entry, be sure to let us know.  The 2011/2012 Hollywood Edition of the Crash the Super Bowl contest officially starts excepting entries on October 3rd.  The deadline to submit is November, 21st.  (much later than last year.)  If you’re planning on entering, all I can say to you is this:  GOOD LUCK!

It was exactly one year ago last Thursday that Doritos and Pepsi Max announced the 2010/2011 installment of their annual Crash the Super Bowl contest.  But filmmakers and fans are still waiting to hear whether or not the contest will be back for 2012.  From what I’ve heard and read, the “Crash” certainly will be happening again this fall.  It’s just that for some reason, Pepsi and Frito-lay have decided to make the announcement later than usual.

One reason for the delay may be that Doritos probably didn’t want to have to share the spotlight with Chevy.  You see, last week Chevy and Mofilm launched THEIR OWN SUPER BOWL COMMERCIAL CONTEST.  The best, 30 second submission (as determined by a panel of judges) will receive $25,000 and is guaranteed to air during the big game.  So what kind of an ad is Chevy looking for?  I just downloaded the official brief and here a few lines from the Creative Assignment Summary:

Create a show-stopping 30-second TV spot to be aired during the XLVI Super Bowl, which takes inspiration from the brief ‘It all started when I turned the key’.

If your life were a movie, ‘turning the key’ would be the equivalent of the Director calling ‘ACTION’. How would you direct the next piece of the story? What fantastical, dramatic, romantic, action-inspired scene could come next?  Be bold. Think big.  TONE:  Optimistic. Human. Authentic. Humorous. Bold.

Other than those basic guidelines, Chevy is pretty open to anything you can come up with.  When this contest was first announced a few months back, I got the impression that filmmakers would have the option to shoot ideas based on a set of scripts that Mofilm would provide.  There was a “Phase I” that was a script competition and several winners were chosen but now it seems like the contest has been altered so that people can shoot their own material.  And that’s a good call if you ask me.  I’m going to enter this contest myself and I definitely would prefer to write my own script.

Though only one winning ad will run during the Super Bowl, there will be lots of smaller prizes up for grabs.  One thing that makes this contest unique is that it’s open to anyone, any where.  And prizes will be given out to the best submissions from different parts of the world.

So if you want to see your work air during Super Bowl XLVI, you don’t have to keep waiting on Doritos.  You can just head over to Mofilm.com and get to work on your Chevy submission today.  The submission deadline is December 1st which FEELS like a long ways away.  But 10 weeks can fly by pretty fast.  Before you know it, Halloween will be here and then suddenly it’s Thanksgiving and then the next thing you know, it’s the night of the deadline and you’re still frantically trying to get your video edited and submitted on time.  So, you might as well get started sooner rather than later.  Here’s where you go to get all the details:  http://www.chevroletroute66.com.

9/21 UPDATE:  One of the nice folks at mofilm left a comment on this post with some more details and contact info in case anyone has any questions.  So click the comments button if you’re interested….

The start of this year’s NFL season is still 3 months away but this morning at the Cannes Lions advertising festival, Chevrolet announced they would be airing 5 commercials during Super Bowl XLVI in February…and one of those ads will be a 30 to 60 second long, consumer-generated “short film” about the spirit of the open road.  So get ready folks because Chevy is “Crashing” the 2012 Super Bowl!

But unlike Doritos’ annual “Crash the Superbowl” contest, Chevy will not be running this promotion themselves.  Instead, the Chevy competition will be hosted and run by the video contest website,  Mofilm.  In fact, this morning’s big announcement was made at the Mofilm seminar in Cannes.

Surprisingly, this is going to be  a GLOBAL video contest so you don’t need to be a US citizen to enter.  The contest will be run in two stages; the Script phase and the Video phase.  You have the option of submitting to either or both phases.  So if you don’t submit a script, you can still shoot a video.  Here’s what Mofilm and Chevy are asking screenwriters to do:

The script for your film should be an epic road trip story or adventure that captures the spirit of Route 66 and Chevrolet! The top five scripts will win serious cash. We will provide feedback on all scripts which will give you a jump start should you decide to produce a video in Round Two.

Yes, you read that correctly.  The sponsors will give feedback on ALL scripts that are submitted.  That’s huge!  It means that anyone who submits to the script phase will have a tremendous advantage when it comes time to shoot their video.  There are 5 cash prizes in the script competition ranging from $1,000 to $5,000.  Once the script competition ends, a new contest brief for the Video Phase will be launched on September 1st.

If your entry is selected as the winner of the Video Phase, your short will air during the Super Bowl and you’ll receive $25,000.  And while this hasn’t been officially announced yet, the folks at Mofilm tell me that the winner will also get a trip to the Big Game.

So how the heck do you win?  Well, the winners will be picked by a mix of public voting and judge’s decisions. However, Joel Ewanick, global chief marketing officer at General Motors told The New York Times that while votes will “have a great deal of influence,” the “final say” will be his.  So I think we need to wait for the official rules before we know how the winners will actually be chosen.  But I’m very glad to hear that votes alone will not determine the winner.

All of this is really exciting news.  Last year, Pepsi Max and Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl contest recived more than 5,000 entries and they aired 6 user-made ads.  Getting something to air during the SuperBowl would be an amazing accomplishment but a 6 in 5,000 shot aren’t very appealing odds.  So if you’re going to enter one HUGE video contest this year, “Route 66″ might be your best bet.  I personally am going to make the Chevy Super Bowl contest my top priority for the second half of 2011.  The deadline to enter is December 1st but I think I’m going to get to work on this ASAP.  The contest was literally just announced like an hour ago so not all of the pertinent info is up on the site yet. But if you want to get a jump on the competition, follow the link below:

Chevrolet Route 66: Super Bowl competition: http://www.mofilm.com/chevroletroute66

In the entire history of online video contests, no company has ever offered a one million dollar prize. Yeah sure, two teams of filmmakers have won million dollar prizes in Dorito’s Crash the Super Bowl contest, but those prizes weren’t guaranteed.  They were bonuses for scoring the #1 spot on the USA Today Super Bowl ad meter.  So there has never been a real, “million dollar video contest”….until now.  On May 18th, Gain detergent launched the “Smell Like a Million Bucks” video contest.  Can you guess what the prize is?  Yep…one million dollars.  Well, 10 annual payments of $100,000 to be more precise.  According to Gain, this is the first time they’ve ever run with such a huge prize.  So why did they choose to do this promotion as a video contest? Well I got to do an e-mail interview with the friendly folks at Gain and here’s what they told me:

Gain consumers are so passionate about Gain, they love interacting with the brand in high engagement ways. We want to celebrate our fans and their loyalty, so what better way to do it than to run a contest that truly showcased our fans in a visual way – so we could see them, hear their voice and celebrate their passion for our brand.

But Gain’s not just going to give away a million bucks for nothing.  If you want to have a shot at the top prize you’ve gotta get creative and do a little work.  To enter, you need to shoot a video that is 60 seconds or less that illustrates how Gain detergent helps keep your clothes smelling great.  You even need to include the phrase “I use Gain and I smell like a million bucks!” for your entry to count.

All entries need to be uploaded to Gain’s Facebook page.  Gain will pick 25 finalists based on 2 factors: a Creative Score and number of views.  Getting a “view” isn’t all that easy though.  For a view to count, a unique person must watch your video all the way through from beginning to end.  And a person can only “view” a video one time a day.  So if you want to boost your view count you’re going to have to really promote your entry hard on facebook.

Next, Gain will pick 25 finalists and then they will open up the field to a public vote.  Whichever video gets the most votes wins the million dollar prize.  That’s pretty heavy.  If you’ve ever entered a vote-based video contest before you know how brutal they can be.  Every vote-based video contest I have entered in the last two years ended suspiciously.  It seems that a lot of people just can’t resist the urge to cheat…probably because it’s so easy to do in an online vote.  And with a million bucks up for grabs, I’m a little worried that this contest might turn into an all-out cheating war.

A lot of contest sponsors simply don’t care if cheaters win.  Apparently it’s just too much trouble to figure out if someone won an Ipad or a thousand bucks fair and square.  But when $1,000,000 is at stake, the sponsor has no choice but to care.  A Million Dollars isn’t an $800 Ipad.  If a finalist creates a bunch of facebook accounts and votes for his or her own video a few hundred (or a few thousand) times they’d be committing a MAJOR crime.  Seriously, it would be a million dollar fraud.  A person would probably do jail time for something like that.  But to Gain’s credit, they seem to be genuinely concerned about cheating.  I’ve read a lot of video contest rules and it’s amazing how sometimes some companies don’t even explicitly prohibit self-voting.  But Gain lays down the law in their official rules:

Any attempt by the Entrant and/or his/her family/friends to vote more than the number of times authorized herein, using any third party proxy voting services, using multiple names or e-mail addresses and/or any other fraudulent mechanism(s), including robotic, automatic, programmed or similar methods, shall give the Sponsor, in its sole discretion, the right to disqualify the Entrant’s Entry.

I asked Gain if they were concerned that one of their finalists might try and cheat.  Here’s what they told me:

We always run contests with safeguards in mind to assure the contest is run with integrity and lawfully. Gain takes such contests very seriously and puts many measures in place to ensure the outcome is legitimate and appropriate.

Gain also confirmed that they will verify the votes before officially declaring a winner.  So, it seems like this should be a tightly run contest. If you’re thinking of entering you better get moving.  The deadline is still 24 days away but already 100 entries have been submitted!  And some of them are pretty good.  Even the Barenaked Ladies submitted an entry!!

Ok, maybe that was shot just to promote the contest.

This is a pretty interesting competition so I’m going to be following it closely.  So stay tuned for updates.  If any of you VCN readers submit an entry, send me the link and maybe I can post it or tweet it and help you get some views.

I almost never promote new video contests because sites like OVC and Film the Next already do a great job listing them as soon as they’re announced.  But the new video contest being run by Spendster.org is so good that I just had to mention it.  Plus it turns out I’m ineligible to enter because I won a prize in Spendster’s last contest.  So you guys are going to have to go out and win this one for the Beardster.

The contest is incredibly easy to enter.  All you do is shoot a simple video that’s under 60 seconds long where you talk about something you wasted a bunch of money on.  That’s it.  Quality doesn’t matter at all.  The winners are picked by an on-going, public vote.

And man, are there going to be a lot of winners in this contest.  The prizes aren’t huge, not at all.  But Spendster is giving away so MANY small prizes that if you shoot a video you’ll probably wind up winning something.  First place will get you $1,000, second will get you $750 and third will get you $500.  And after that, FIFTY people will each win a $100 visa  gift card as a runner-up prize.  FIFTY PEOPLE!

I recommend you don’t even try to get enough votes to land in the top 3.  Just shoot for winning one of the runner-up prizes.  Sure, 100 bucks isn’t much money but it’s certainly better than a punch in the face.  And if you’re new to video contests and have never won a prize before this is an easy way to bust your cherry. Or maybe you’ve won a few contests already but you just love free money.  Or hey, since the $100 prize comes on a visa gift card you could just save it for when you need a last minute present for somebody.  Or keep it paper-clipped to your drivers license for the next time you want to try and get out of a speeding ticket!

Normally I avoid contests where the winners are picked solely by a public vote.  But in the case of this Spendster contest, the voting is what really makes this contest so attractive.  You see, the voting is already going on and is open until May 25th.  And people can vote once per IP address, PER DAY.  So if you shoot an entry right away and if you remember to vote for yourself once a day, you should have a pretty decent chance of landing in the top 53.

Like I said, I won a prize in Spendster’s last video contest so I can tell you first hand this isn’t some kind of weird scam.  Actually last time the contest was even bigger.  97 people each won $250 and I was of the runners up.  It took me all of 15 minutes to shoot my entry, plus maybe another 45 to edit it (it was just one shot) and upload it to youtube.

So if making $100 per hour sounds good to you, head here to enter the contest:  http://spendster.org/ And if you win a prize, be sure to let me know….I promise I won’t demand a cut of your winnings.

UPDATE: I just heard from one reader who shot an entry for this and needs votes.  Follow this link and click on the vote button to help him out.  It’ll take ‘ya 6 seconds!  SHANE’S ENTRY.