Flashback: Logo from the first installment of the CTSB contest

Did you know that there’s no wikipedia entry for Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl contest?  Is that weird or what?  Everything has a Wikipedia entry.  For God’s Sake, the Nickelodeon show “Hey Dude” which ran from 1989 to 1991 has a massive Wikipedia page complete with episode guides. (I clicked the “Random Article” button on Wikipedia and the Hey Dude entry was the first one to pop up)  Over the last two and half year’s I’ve written dozens of articles about “The Crash” and I’ve had to spend a lot of time searching the web for information.  It would be really helpful if some nerd out there would just compile a bunch of facts about the contest and post them online.

Oh wait….I guess if anyone is nerdy enough to do something like that it’s me.  It took me a lot of googling but I’ve found a ton of data about The Crash and I will list it all in this single post.  This is going to be just basic stuff like who made the finals, who won, how many entries where received, etc.  Please be aware that if you are actually interested in this type of data that pretty much means you are as big of a nerd as I am.

Let’s start with the number of entries the contest has received over the years.  Most of these numbers come from old articles or press releases that were put out by Fritolay:
 

NUMBER OF TOTAL CTSB ENTRIES BY YEAR:

2006/2007 Installment: 1,065 Doritos entries.

2007/2008: No commercial contest that season.

2008/2009 Installment: 1961 Doritos Entries.

2009/2010 Installment: 4023 Doritos Entries

2010/2011 Installment: 4,260 Doritos Entries.

2011/2012 Installment: 6,100 Doritos Entries.

 
Note: In 2010, Pepsi Max was also part of the Crash the Super Bowl contest. Pepsi Max received 1,460 submissions. But the Pepsi Max “Crash” was pretty much a totally different contest run by a different company and a different set of judges. So for the rest of this article I’m just going to focus on the Doritos contest. And now, time for a graph:
 

Hey, those points look like doritos!

But this raw data doesn’t tell the whole story. If you’ve entered past installments of the CTSB contest you know that every year, Doritos gets HUNDREDS of duplicate entries. I think the rules say that you can submit up to 10 versions of your commercial. And some people just uploaded their video 10 times. Some probably did it because they were unsure if the initial upload worked. But I think others used to do it just because they thought maybe it would improve their chances.

The repeat entries used to be really annoying. It seemed like for every 100 submissions I watched, at least 20 would be repeats. But fortunately, this year Doritos finally took measures to keep the duplicates out of the video gallery. I’d estimate that only 5% of this season’s submissions were repeats.  So just for the fun of it let’s adjust the numbers to account for all the duplicates. I’ll deduct 20% from each total except for 2011. For this year’s total I’ll only deduct 5%.
 

ESTIMATED NUMBER OF ORIGINAL CTSB ENTRIES:

2006/2007 Installment: 852 Unique Doritos entries.

2008/2009 Installment: 1569 Unique Doritos Entries.

2009/2010 Installment: 3,220 Unique Doritos Entries.

2010/2011 Installment: 3,408 Unique Doritos Entries.

2011/2012 Installment: 5,795 Unique Doritos Entries.

 
Now let’s do a little light math. Each year, Doritos picks 5 finalists. (Except in the 09-10 contest when they picked 6 finalists)  So it’s easy to calculate a contestant’s chance of making the finals.
 

ESTIMATED CHANCES OF A VIDEO MAKING THE CTSB FINALS, BY YEAR:

2006/2007 Installment: 1 in 170.

2008/2009 Installment: 1 in 313.

2009/2010 Installment: 1 in 536.

2010/2011 Installment: 1 in 681.

2011/2012 Installment: 1 in 1,159.

 
Anyone who has watched a few random CTSB entries knows that most of the submissions Doritos receives every year just aren’t that great.  But there’s no possible way to estimate what a filmmaker’s odds are if he makes a GOOD submission.  So I won’t even try.  Let’s move on to a list of who has won the contest over the years.  I’ll include the Pepsi Max Crash the Super Bowl finalists just for the heck of it.  You can find all of these commercials on the official Crash the Super Bowl channel on youtube.
 

2007, 2009, 2010, 2011 AND 2012 CRASH THE SUPER BOWL FINALISTS:

 
2006-2007 Finalists:

1.  Live the Flavor by Five Points Productions of Cary, NC.
-WINNER:  Aired during the Super Bowl.

2.  Check Out Girl by Kristin C. Dehnert of Los Angeles, CA.
-Also aired during the 2007 Super Bowl.

3.  Mouse Trap by Billy Federighi of Beverly Hills, CA.
-Aired during the 2008 Super Bowl.

4.  Chip Lover’s Dream by Jared Cicon of Claremont, CA.

3.  Duct Tape by Joe Herbert of Batesville, IN.

2007-2008:  No Commercial contest

2008-2009 Finalists:

1. Free Doritos by Joe Herbert of Batesville, IN.
-Aired during the Super Bowl. WINNER:  Million dollar bonus.

2. New Flavor Pitch by Oren Brimer of New York, NY.

3. Power of the Crunch by Eric Heimbold of Venice, CA.
-Also aired During the Super bowl.

4. The Chase by Chris Roberts of Burbank, CA.

5. Too Delicious by Michael Goubeaux of Los Angeles, CA.

2009-2010 Finalists:

1. Snack Attack Samurai by Ben Krueger of Minneapolis, MN.
-Aired during the Super Bowl.

2. The Smackout by Brendan Hayward of Santa Monica, CA.

3. Casket by Kevin Wilson of Whittier, CA.
-Aired during the Super Bowl.

4. House Rules by Joelle De Jesus of Los Angeles, CA.
-Aired during the Super Bowl.

5. Underdog by Five Points Productions of Cary, NC.
-Aired during the Super Bowl. WINNER: $600,000 Bonus.

6. Kids These Days by Nick Dimondi of Cary, NC

2010-2011 Doritos Finalists:

1.  Adam and Eve by Stephen Schuster of Topanga, CA.

2.  Best Part by Tyler Dixon of Lehi, Utah.
-Aired during the Super Bowl.

3.  Birthday Wish by Heather Kasprzak of Los Angeles, CA.

4.  House Sitting by Tynesha Williams of Santa Monica, CA.
-Aired during the Super Bowl.

5.  Pug Attack by JR Burningham of Burbank, CA.
-Aired during the Super Bowl. WINNER:  Million dollar Bonus.

2010-11 Pepsi Max Finalists:

1.  Elevator Girl by Michael Doneger of Los Angeles, CA

2.  First Date by Nick Simotas of Anaheim, CA.
-Aired during the Super Bowl.

3.  Love Hurts by Brad Bosley of Los Angeles, CA.
-Aired during the Super Bowl. WINNER: $400,000 Bonus.

4.  Torpedo Cooler by Brendan Hayward of Santa Monica, CA
-Aired during the Super Bowl.

5.  Zero Calories? Psshh by Brandy Gill of Orlando, FL

2011-12 Doritos Finalists:

1.  Bird of Prey by Joby Harris of Los Angeles, CA.

2.  Dog Park by Tyler Dixon of Liegh, UT.

3.  Hot Wild Girls by Brad Scott of Denver, CO.

4.  Man’s Best Friend by Jonathan Friedman of Virginia Beach, VA.

5.  Sling Baby by Kevin T. Willson of Los Angeles, CA.
And finally, since all the news articles and press releases I read always said where the finalists came from, let’s do a  breakdown of the states that gave us Crash the Super Bowl finalists:
 
The 31 Crash the Superbowl commercials came from directors in the following states:

California:  19 commercials

North Carolina:  3 commercials

Utah:  2 commercial

Indiana: 2 commercials

Florida:  1 commercial

New York:  1 commercial

Minnesota:  1 commercial

Colorado:  1 commercial

Virginia:  1 commercial
 
It should be no surprise that a lot of the winning commercials came from California since so many filmmakers live in the LA area.  But what is surprising is that a number of people have made the finals more than once.  The 3 North Carolina ads all came from a team known as Five-Points Productions, the 2 commercials from Indiana were both made by the famous Herbert Brothers, the 2 ads from Utah were directed by a filmmaker named Tyler Dixon and 4 of the California commercials (plus 1 of the Utah commercials) were made by a group of friends that all attended the same Church in Los Angeles.

I know that a lot of Crash the Super Bowl finalists (past and present) read this site. So if anyone sees any errors in this post, please let me know!

The 2010 Taxslayer contest was such a disaster (they retroactively canceled the contest 3 weeks after the deadline passed so they wouldn’t have to pay out any prizes) that I was totally flabbergasted when I learned that they were going to try and and run a new version of the contest for 2011.  For the first time, Taxslayer abandoned the “make our next TV commercial” idea and replaced it with a good, old-fashioned video contest.  The requirements were simple; contestants had to make a video that demonstrated “The Craziest of Funniest way you’ve ever done your taxes.”  And to make things even simpler, Taxslayer even said they were NOT looking for commercials for their company.  They just wanted funny videos.  In fact, the videos only needed to mention “Taxslayer” once.  So again, it really seemed like they did NOT want a standard commercial-style video.

Because Taxslayer screwed their contestants so badly last year I decided to stay far away from this year’s version.  I had pretty much forgotten about the contest when one day about 6 weeks ago I got 3 e-mails in one afternoon from filmmakers who had just recived strange e-mails from Taxslayer. The letters they got notified them that their entries (and a lot of other entries) were being pulled from the contest. Here’s a copy of the letter the rejected filmmakers got:

So Taxslayer bounced the entries that didn't meet the established guidelines. Or at least that's what they said. What really happened is that the people who set up this contest screwed up and didn't communicate to contestants what they actually wanted. Here's a screen grab that a contestant sent to me of the original rules:

In case you can’t read that tiny, fuzzy type, the rules say that contestants should:

“Submit a video demonstrating the craziest or funniest way you’ve done your taxes. Entries should reference Taxslayer at least once.”

But compare that to this line from the letter that the rejected filmmakers received:

“We would like a short video demonstrating the craziest or funniest way you’ve done your taxes WITH TAXSLAYER.COM.”

Catch the difference?  In the original rules, Taxslayer forgot to mention the “with Taxslayer.com” part.  So naturally, filmmakers shot videos that showed a crazy way they had done their taxes WITHOUT taxslayer.  I know that’s what I would have done.  It seemed like the whole point of the contest was to show how crazy it is to do your taxes without Taxslayer.

Because the folks at Taxslayer were simply to incompetent too articulate exactly what kind of videos they wanted, they decided to punish filmmakers for not being able to read their minds.  They rejected all the entries that weren’t about Taxslayer and told contestants they could re-edit their entries to comply with the (new) guidelines. To be fair, Taxslayer did tell filmmakers that they could re-submit their videos without making any changes but come on….there was no way any of those entries ever had a shot at winning.

Here’s the video that Taxslayer ultimately selected as this year’s winner:

2011 Taxslayer winner. Prize: $10,000:

That’s actually a pretty good video.  I like it and it perfectly fits the contest “guidelines.” And it’s even kind of topical, no?  Taxslayer just announced the winner on May 5th so I can’t help but wonder if the recent news about the Seal team that took out Osama Bin Laden influenced the judges decisions.

At this point I’d post a link to the contest page and encourage you to check out the other entries…but I can’t. Taxslayer pulled the entire contest off the web almost as soon as the winner was announced.  You can’t even watch the winning video on any of taxslayer’s sites.  It’s only by luck that I happened to find a version of the winning commercial on vimeo.  And yes…the video that won is a commercial.  For all of Taxslayer’s talk about how they didn’t want an “ad” they wound up picking a video that looks a whole lot like a TV commercial.  It’s 30 seconds long, it ends with a Taxslayer.com title card and even demonstrates that you can do your taxes on taxslayer from your Ipad.

When Taxslayer canceled last year’s video contest I thought for sure they wouldn’t have the balls to try and run it again this year.  So will Taxslayer bring the contest back in 2012?  Oh, I’m sure they will.  But if they do, take my advice; don’t waste your time, money and talent entering.  If you do enter I’m sure you’ll only wind up getting screwed over in some new, crazy way.

Back in March of 2010 I was one of the finalists in Fidelity Investment’s “Be the Green Line” video contest. For that one, filmmakers were supposed to show someone actually acting like the “green line” you see in Fidelity commercials. I was up against a handful of crappy videos and one excellent, very well made entry. I never mind losing a video contest as long as I lose to a decent video. And this was one of those cases. I lost but the winning video was great so I just kind of forgot about the contest.

But before the winners were selected, I mentioned the fact that I made the finals here on this blog. Man…I guess that was 13 months ago now. I’m able to keep track of what web pages people visit when they look at this site and for some weird reason, my post about the Fidelity contest is one of the most popular posts I’ve ever done on VCN. I can also tell what google search terms visitors use to find this site and “Be the Green Line winner” pops up at least twice a week. I don’t know why people are interested in a video contest that ended more than a year ago but I bet that Fidelity still has some kind of promo for the contest up on some forgotten web page. People see the promo and realize by now the winners would have been picked long ago so they go searching for the results. But I don’t think the results exist anywhere except in the minds of the contestants. So for the sake of posterity, here is the winner of Fidelity Investment’s 2010 “Be The Green Line” video contest.  Oh and also the winning video is worth watching because the girl in it looks ridiculously hot in the first scene.

“Be the Green Line” Winner.  Prize:  $5,000:

Though January is already 19 days old it still feels like we’re in that gray area between the old year and the new. So before we get too deep into 2011 I thought we could take a look back at the top video contest entries of 2010.

Now I could ramble on for a paragraph or two about how much video contests changed in 2010, the record-breaking amounts of money that were won and the ways technology has enabled freelance filmmakers to create more professional looking videos.  And then I could top it off by explaining why it’s a safe bet to say that User-generated content is going to be an important part of the future of advertising and blah, blah, blah. But anyone reading this probably already knows all that stuff! The factors I just listed are the reasons we all keep making video contest entries; the money and exposure are awesome and the rewards just keep keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

So let’s skip the exposition and get right to the good stuff; VCN’s VIDEO CONTEST ENTRY OF THE YEAR! Now I know what you’re thinking…it’s got to be “Underdog,” the Crash the Super Bowl entry that aired during the Super Bowl, scored #2 on the USA Today Ad Meter and won its creators a $600,000 bonus, right? Wrong! That choice would be to easy. Instead I’ve decided to recognize a different 2010 Crash the Super Bowl winner; SNACK ATTACK SAMURAI by Ben Krueger and Cole Koehler!

2010 Crash the Super Bowl finalist. Prize: $25,000 and aired during the Super Bowl:

So why Snack Attack Samurai? Well to start, it’s a great ad, it made it to the Crash the Super Bowl finals and it scored enough votes to air during the 2010 Super Bowl. But this humble, little video earns top honors this year not because of how much money it won (just $25,000!) but because of what it accomplished. By a fluke of timing, Snack Attack Samurai wound up playing near the end of last year’s Super Bowl right during a particularly exciting moment in the game. The next day, Nielson announced that the ad wound up being the MOST WATCHED COMMERCIAL IN THE HISTORY OF TELEVISION.

Like I said, this sort of happened by chance but it is still an incredible accomplishment. 100 Million people in the United States saw this ad on Super Sunday. That’s 1 out of 3 Americans. More people saw that first airing of Snack Attack Samurai than saw Avatar during its entire theatrical run. So why is this a big deal? It’s a big deal because in the roughly 80 year history of television, the commercial that wound up with the biggest audience ever wasn’t made by a team of marketing geniuses from Madison Avenue and it wasn’t produced by a humongous production company and it didn’t feature any big name stars. It was made by two dudes in Minnesota and it cost a tiny fraction of what most regular TV commercials cost. And here’s the craziest part of all…..those 100 million viewers? THEY DIDN’T CARE WHO MADE THE AD OR WHERE IT CAME FROM. Though a lot of them probably knew Snack Attack Samurai was part of the Crash the Super Bowl contest, to most viewers it was just another Super Bowl commercial. And to me folks, that means we’re entering an age when there aren’t any more “big guys” and “little guys;” there will only be the “talented” and the “untalented.”  The playing field is getting very even, very quickly.

So that’s why Snack Attack Samurai gets our “entry of the year award.” But what was the BEST contest entry of the year? Well, chances are you’ve probably never seen this one.  Our pick for the Best entry of 2010 was a short film called NUIT BLANCHE. It won first place and 100 grand in LG’s “Life’s Good” oneline film fest. The goal of the contest was to create an HD video based on the theme, “Life’s Good.” Though I suspect that Nuit Blanche wasn’t specifically shot for the contest it’s undeniably awesome and was THE BEST VIDEO CONTEST ENTRY OF THE YEAR:

Grand Prize Winner, LG’s Life’s Good HD Film Fest. Prize: $100,000:

Crazy right??  If you wanna have your mind blow, check out this “making of Nuit Blanche” video. Pretty much every effect was done digitally which means in 5 years, high school kids will probably be making videos with equally sophisticated effects.

Next up, here’s THE BIGGEST WINNER OF 2010. Yep, it’s UNDERDOG from the Crash the Super Bowl contest.

Crash the Super Bowl winner. Prizes: Won $625,000 and aired during the Super Bowl:

I think this video might also deserve the unofficial title of “Beardy’s Favorite Winner of the year.” The $600,000 that Underdog won was technically a bonus for scoring well on the USA Today Ad meter. Those bonuses were not guaranteed so you could also consider our next ad to be the “Biggest Winner of the year.” But let’s call this one THE WINNER OF THE BIGGEST GUARANTEED CONTEST PRIZE. It’s entitled “Russell’s Notebook and it won first place and $250,000 in the big Godaddy summer video contest.

Grand Prize Winner, Godaddy Summer contest. Prize: $250,000:

$250,000 by the way happens to the be largest guaranteed video contest prize EVER. The ad has also supposedly played on TV but I haven’t seen it air myself.

Next up, here’s THE MOST VIRAL VIDEO CONTEST ENTRY OF 2010:

Crash the Super Bowl Finalist. Prize: Won $25,000 and aired during the Super Bowl:

EVERYBODY (and their Momma) has watched and re-watched this ad. I didn’t like it when I first saw it but it really grew on me. Doritos really knew what they were during when they picked House Rules as a finalist last year. The ad became a viral hit even before the Super Bowl and to date it’s been viewed almost 10 Million times on the Crash the Super Bowl youtube channel alone.

So those were the big winners of 2010. But here’s a quick list of some of the other video contest entries that scored big last year.

These two commercials were made for a Poptent Assignment for Quiznos. The ads wound up airing on TV for months and they are so well made that I’m guessing few viewers would ever guess they weren’t produced by Quizno’s regular ad firm:

VALUE MENU!  Purchased by Quiznos.  Price: $7,500.

U-543.  Purchased by Quiznos.  Price: $7,500.

Godaddy actually ran two big video contests in 2010; a “Spring” contest and a “Summer” contest.  The winner of the “Spring” contest and $100,000 was entitled “Go Momma” and the ad aired on TV a bit.  But I think the big winner of that contest was actually the SECOND Place ad; FingerFighting.com:

Second Place Winner, Godaddy Spring Contest. Prize: $50,000:

Though Fingerfighting.com won less money, Godaddy aired it on TV like crazy.  I still see it run every once in a while!  And the Phoenix-based filmmakers who made it actually won another $25,000 runner-up prize in Godaddy’s Summer Contest with an ad called Isawbigfoot.co.  I talked to the director of the ad a few weeks back and he said Godaddy is actually airing the ad in India.

Here’s another video contest entry that made it to TV.  This promo was shot for a Zooppa-run contest for TMZ and won first place.

First Place Winner, TMZ promo contest.  Prize: $10,000:

TMZ has been airing this promo during their show along with the 2nd and 3rd place winning videos too. You can see them all here: http://zooppa.com/contests/tmz-on-tv#/winners.

Finally, here are a couple ads that won smaller prizes but that I really liked:

DON’T FORGET.  Winner, Louisiana Hot Sauce Video Contest.  Prize: $5,000.

RONNIE’S SKIN SHACK.  Runner up, Skinit.com commercial contest.  Prize: $5,000.

First Place Winner, Are You Debit Smart Contest. Prize: $5,000:

HUMAN HEAD. Purchased by Fed-ex via Poptent’s Fed-Ex assignment. Price: $5,000.

1/20 UPDATE: A reader sent me a link to this video that won the Mofilm American Idol Walmart competition. Apparently this ad even aired during the American Idol Finale. It’s pretty good. Prizes won include a trip to LA, tickets to the American Idol finale and thousands of dollars in cash and Walmart Gift cards.

http://www.mofilm.com/std/0ae308

So what do you think? Did I miss any big entries from 2010?

Sweet jumping Jesus! The Top 10 finalists for the 2011 Crash the Super Bowl contest were revealed a little after midnight last night and I absolutely could not believe the results when I saw them. I mean literally, I did NOT believe the results I was looking at. The reveal was scheduled to happen at exactly 12AM but when I checked the site at ten after, the finalists had yet to be posted. I checked again a few minutes later and the site was blank. So when the 10 finalists finally appeared I honestly thought that there had been some kind of glitch or something and several random videos were being used to fill some of the the finalist slots. I know it must sound like I’m joking but I’m not. The results of this contest are just simply that unbelievably disappointing.

I’ve been looking forward to the reveal of the CTSB finals videos for weeks, not because I thought I might win but because I love watching great video contest entries. And until now, the Crash the Super Bowl finalist videos tended to be some of the best, funniest, most cleaver, most memorable commercials of the year. (Just a few days ago I was at a New Year’s Party and I heard someone say “Keep your hands off my momma, keep your hands off my Doritos!”)  But the 2011 batch of finalists are just so…so…lame. All of the finalist ads are ok, and a few are even pretty good but most of them range from annoying to mediocre.  And one of them probably should have even been disqualified for violating the rules.

On Saturday I posted my predictions for the Top 5 Pepsi Max ads and it turns out I was way, way off.  I got 1 out of 5 correct (Love Hurts.) One other ad, “Torpedo Cooler” made my Top 30 list. The other 3 finalists did make my unofficial “decent entries” list (I bookmarked every entry I saw that was at least ok) but I never, NEVER would have excepted to see some of these spots make the Top 5. There were just SO MANY BETTER ADS submitted I cannot comprehend what led Doritos and Pepsi to make some of these choices.

One of my other predictions did come true though and it came true in a BIG way. I predicted that this year, the CTSB judges would be looking for commercials that did not look as professional as past finalist videos. I predicted they’d be looking for stuff that seemed more home-made and was maybe even rough around the edges. And let me tell you, some of these finalist videos are pretty rough! I love that Fritolay is willing to give videos of low production quality a shot but I expected the ads to also be funny! If a video looks bad and sounds bad and isn’t funny or interesting, then it’s just a bad ad. I would much rather see 10 super slick but funny ads dominate the Top 10.

By now you’ve probably watched all Top finalist videos for yourself.  But I’m going to give each spot a brief review.  I’ll be scoring each ad on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being a total embarrassment and 10 being one of the best commercials of the year.  Click the images to watch the ad on the CTSB site.  Here are the Doritos ads first followed by the Pepsi Max ads:

ADAM EVE. VCN’s score:  5/10. This is one of the coolest commercials for apples I have ever seen.  Too bad it’s supposed to be an ad for Doritos.  It’s hard to tell since the chips don’t appear until the very end.  The ad looks gorgeous and the girl is crazy hot but the pay off is a total groaner.  After the chips are revealed I half expected to hear that ironic, anti-climactic trumpet sound.  You know…waww waaaaaaw.  Is this ad really special enough to air in front of 100 million people on Super Bowl sunday? Chances on the Ad Meter: LOW.  Except for the pretty CG background and the “naked” girl, there is nothing going on here that would cause viewers to crank their dials to “like.”  In fact, it might even offend some of the more religious members of the Ad Meter focus group.

BIRTHDAY WISH. VCN’s score:  6/10.  Birthday Wish is one of the best of the Top 10 and it was directed by 2010 Crash the Super Bowl finalist Kevin Willson.  Last year his ad “Casket” played during the Super Bowl but didn’t crack the Top 10 on the ad meter.  Though this spot is funny, I believe that it probably is in violation of the official rules of the contest and should have been disqualified.  The rules state that all sound effects must be original.  This ad is filled with sound effects and I swear I recognize several of them.   The first time the kids all yell “yayyy!” sounds like a popular stock sound and I KNOW I have heard those robot noises before.  I think they come from an old robot toy.  So the sound guy may have recorded the sound from the toy but it’s still copyright infringement if he did. Jan 5 UPDATE: I’m lowering the score for this ad from 8/10 to 6/10.  I was so distracted by the lack of quality in some of the other finalist videos that I let the slickness of this ad distract me from it’s content.  Re-watching it I realize that the product it is meant to advertise, Doritos only get about 3 SECONDS of quality screen time.  This contest isn’t a film festival. The selected ads still have to sell some chips.  Chances on the ad meter: GOOD.  The ad is funny and interesting all the way through though it lacks a big punchline.  I can see this making the top 5 but not the top 3.

HOUSE SITTING. VCN’s score: 6/10. I can sum up my reaction to this spot in three letters W…T…F?  The ad is well made and nicely paced but it just gives me the heebie jeebies.  There’s just something creepy about a cremated old man coming back from the dead.  And the circumstances of this spot are pretty weird.  For one thing, why would a “grandson” have his grandfather’s ashes?  Did none of grandpa’s children want them?  And how many 25 year old’s have you ever met that keep someone’s ashes on their mantle?  One last question, how will this ad make anyone want to buy or eat Doritos?  Chances on the ad meter: MODERATE.  This is not an ad that anyone is going to love but the “happy ending” would keep it from sinking too low in the rankings.

PUG ATTACK. VCN’s score:  4/10.  I liked this ad a lot better the first time I saw it…when it was called Underdog.  I means seriously Fritolay, you picked another finalist ad about a guy who tries to torture a cute dog by offering him Doritos?  At least last year’s dog-centric finalist video was clever and wacky.  This ad is just drawn out and predictable.  And I think viewers are going to remember Underdog and realize this is probably a rip-off. (seriously, click that link to compare them)  The people who made it had to have been trying to do their own version of that ad, probably because Underdog did so well on the ad meter last year.  I mean the ad even ends with the dog eating from the bag on the ground just like in Underdog.  Chances on the Ad Meter: LOW TO MODERATE.  The dog is cute but the ad is soooo drawn out.  Viewers will get bored before the punchline comes.  I’d expect it to rank at about #17.

THE BEST PART. VCN’s score:  7/10. Do people watching the super bowl really want to see one man suck orange “cheese” off the fingers of another man?  No…probably not.  The lead actor’s performance is funny but the character is kind of a rip off of the characters that comedian Nick Swardson does.  Jan 4th UPDATE: The phrase “Mmmm, Cheese!” has been stuck in my head since yesterday and I’ve actually chuckled to myself as I recalled the ad.  That says A LOT about the effectiveness of this commercial.  Chances on the ad meter: MODERATE.  “Hey, is that Mclovin in that ad!?  I think it is!!”  That’s how a lot of people are going to react when they first see this commercial.  No, that’s McLovin from SuperBad.  But if viewers THINK that’s Mclovin they might actually score the ad higher just because they like seeing that guy.  But the unappetizing finger and pants licking could turn off a number of ad meter viewers.

ELEVATOR GIRL. VCN’s Score:  2/10. This spot will probably forever have the distinction of being the worst Crash the Super Bowl finalist ever. It is so appallingly bad that you have to wonder if it was made by the son of some big shot at PepsiCo.  The jokes and performances are as bland as the visuals.  A plain white elevator?  That’s supposed to catch viewer’s eyes during the Super Bowl?  And the “punchline” is so lame and so poorly delivered that my immediate reaction was “is that it!?”  This entry isn’t even good enough to play at 2am on Nick at Night let alone the Super Bowl.  Chances on the Ad Meter: NONE.  There is no way in the world the Pepsi judges could think this spot would ever make the Top 3 on the ad meter.  This pick is so suspiciously bad that I can’t help but wonder if they are trying to tank this contest on purpose.

FIRST DATE.  VCN’s Score:  5/10. Personally, I like this one but I don’t think it’s right for such a high profile contest.  I remember thinking this ad was cute and funny when I first saw it but is this really a Super Bowl commercial?  If it plays during the big game are people going to want to watch it again later on youtube?  Are they going to want to tweet the link or post it on their facebook pages?  Would anyone even remember this ad by the end of the game?  Chances on the Ad Meter. LOW.  The low production values and lack of action will turn off most viewers right from the start.  It does start to get funnier as it goes on but the whole ad is just too low-key to make an impression on focus group viewers.

LOVE HURTS.  VCN’s Score:  9/10. This is the best finalist of the entire Top 10.  It’s funny all the way through and it actually tells you why you should drink Pepsi Max; it tastes good but it also has zero calories.  But the best thing about this ad is that it features a classic Crash the Super Bowl surprise at the end.  Chances on the Ad Meter: HIGH.  If any CTSB ad has a chance of making the Top 3 this year it’s this one….but I don’t think it will.  Let’s be realistic here; the ad features an African American woman assaulting a pretty blond white girl.  Some folks are going to be offended by that.  Those people will be idiots but there are a lot of idiots in this country.

TORPEDO COOLER.  VCN’s Score: 8/10. This is the best ad of the bunch after Love Hurts.  It was directed by 2010 CTSB finalist Brendon Haywood.  Brendon’s ad The Smack Out didn’t wind up airing during the Super Bowl.  Since one team of finalists actually got two ads in the Top 6 last year, Brendon was the only guy in the contest who didn’t get to see one of his commercials air during the big game.  I remember getting the feeling that the other finalists and the Fritlay folks felt really bad for the guy since he was the only “non-winner.”  Like I said, this is a good ad and it made my Top 30 list.  But could this choice be Fritolay’s way of giving a nice guy a second shot at the bigtime?  Chances on the ad meter: MODERATE TO GOOD.  This is a funny ad that looks great and has some cool effects in it.  I can see this spot making the Top 10 on the ad meter.

ZERO CALORIES?  PSSSHT! VCN’s Score:  4/10. Psssht indeed!  What the F%*& is this video doing in the Top 10!?  More than 1400 commercials were submitted to this contest.  Is this really one of the best??  The only reason I can think of that this ad made it is because it features all women it was submitted by someone named BrandyGill74.  In all the years the Crash the Super Bowl contest has been run there has never been one, single female finalist.  Fritolay knew that was unacceptable and I think they decided there had to be a female director included in the top 10.  And “BrandyGill74” sounds like the screen name of a 36 year old female director.  Seriously, that’s the only explanation that makes any sense.  This commercial is simply annoying as hell.  The sound isn’t even any good.  It’s not fit for TV.  UPDATE: Turns out “Brandy Gill” is a guy.”  I think his name really might have helped his chances though.  Chances on the Ad Meter: NONE TO LOW.  Who could like this?  Seriously, who?  Does Pepsi think it will appeal to women?  Because I think most women will see this and just think that’s one group of weird white ladies.

Ok, now I know I’ve been pretty harsh on some of these ads but I want to stop and take a moment to offer my congratulations to all the finalists.  No, seriously!  I mean it.  We have a rule here at Video Contest News; don’t hate the player, hate the game.  You can’t blame anyone for winning a video contest fair and square.  Judges sometimes make idiotic decisions but it’s not the filmmaker’s fault.  Some of this year’s finalists got incredibly lucky and I’m sure they know it.  So good for them for pulling off a win.  I can’t say that I’m not jealous.

But I also can’t say that I’m not pissed.  Something seriously wrong has happened here.  Pepsi and Doritos snubbed hundreds of decent ads in favor of some incredibly lame videos.  And this isn’t sore loser talk.  I think the general public and marketing professionals are going to be stunned when they see the ads that Fritolay and their consultants at Goodby/Silverstein selected to represent their brands.  Goodby/Silverstein is a very big and respected ad agency.  How could they let their clients make such awful choices?  If a spot like “Elevator Girl” winds up playing during the Super Bowl it will be a major embarrassment for everyone involved.  Hell, it will be a major embarrassment for people who are not involved like YOU and ME!  I think the most troubling thing about these results is that if companies think these 10 finalists are the “best” that we “little guys” can come up with, the video contest/user-generated ad  phenomenon might be in serious trouble.

So, what do YOU think of the 2011 Crash the Superbowl finalists?  Speak your mind in the comment section!

It’s been just over a month since the deadline for the Crash the Super Bowl contest passed so if you’re one of the 6,000 or so people who entered this year, right about now you’re probably wondering when the 5 Pepsi Max and 5 Doritos finalists will be told they made the top 10. The finalists will officially be revealed on Monday, January 3rd (sounds like this might happen right at midnight) and voting for the ads that will air during the super bowl will start immediately.  But since finalists will need to submit a ton of paperwork before their ads can be cleared for use, the producers of those ads will need time to get all that stuff together.  And this year, finalists will be allowed to make some small tweaks to their entries so that will take some time too.

According the the moderator on the Crash the Super Bowl website, this year’s finalists have NOT yet been notified (as of December 14th) but Fritolay won’t say exactly when the notifications will take place.  But I’ve talked to a number of past CTSB finalists and it sounds like every year Doritos contacts the finalists just before Christmas. So if you haven’t heard anything yet you can continue to hold out hope for about another week.  But if you don’t get an e-mail or phone call by the end of business on the 23rd you might want to start making other plans for the Super Bowl.

DECEMBER 20th UPDATE: A few people on the crash the super bowl site noticed that someone left this comment on a doritos video called “Picking Teams:”

“Heard the word that you guys were contacted in a blog! Thats awesome! COngrats guys.. This spot def deserved it!”  (link)

But the CTSB forum moderator was asked about this and said that the finalists have NOT YET been notified.

DECEMBER 20th UPDATE #2: Some knucklehead using the screen name “TheTop10″ is posting a bunch of comments on different, popular entries on the Crash the Super Bowl site saying that “according to Video Contest News” the finalists have already been notified.  For the record, we have NOT claimed that the finalists have been notified.  In fact, I believe the forum moderator when he said that the finalists have not been contacted yet.  I do suspect that “Picking Teams” is a finalist video though and that word did slip out about that one.  But I think they were contacted early for some special reason and the rest of the finalists will probably be contacted in the next few days.

DECEMBER 21st UPDATE: A finalist from last year’s Crash the Super Bowl contest posted a comment today and he explained how and when he got the good news last year.  I’ll let him remain anonymous but I can confirm that he definitely was a finalist last year.  So check out the comments to get the inside story!