First Place Winner.  Prize:  $10,000:

Pretty good huh?  Looks really professional too.  I was keeping an eye on this contest because I actually entered this one myself.  I collaborated with my long-distance contest buddy HappyJoel Levinson; he created a song and I shot and edited a video for it.  We did manage to win a prize; $500.  But this was one of those times when I kind of knew I had missed the mark.  I think the video was cute but it was lacking pizazz.  You can’t tell from the video but the outside stuff was shot in the freezing rain.  But at least the shoot was a good excuse to try out my new camera gear.  I just bought an HVX200 last month and I’m really happy with it.  Now that I’m using a real video camera again I realize just how inhibiting DSLRs can be.  With the HVX I don’t need to worry about ISO numbers or syncing up audio in post or stuff going out of focus if I move the camera a foot closer to the subject.  I’m excited to shoot a lot more entries this year now that I don’t have to worry so much about the tech side of things.  Basically I’ll be able to just point and shoot.  Anywho, if you’d like to see the entry Joel and I did (or the rest of the winning spots) head here:  http://tongal.com/project/aceservice

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!

There's more than one way to crash the Super Bowl

Just before Christmas, Mofilm revealed the finalists in Chevy’s Route 66 Super Bowl commercial contest.  This mega-competition was open to filmmakers from all over the world and the winning ad will play during the 2012 SuperBowl.  The top filmmaker will also receive $25,000 Actually, there are a bunch of cash prizes at stake and there will be different winners from different regions of the globe.

So how are the winners determined?  A public vote…right?  Wrong!  Though the video gallery is full of ways you can “like” or share the finalists, views and votes will have no impact on which videos will win.  Judges have the final say in all stages of this contest which is the only way a contest like this should be run.  The only reason that companies bother with public votes is because it’s a free and easy form of publicity.  But Mofilm came up with a very clever way to get that cheap social media coverage without diluting the integrity of their contest.  They are running a side competition where the “Top Sharer” of the chosen commercials will win $10,000.  Basically whoever directs the most viewers to the contest site wins.  If you want to try and get in on that action, head here.

I’ve watched all 32 finalist commercials and they range from pretty bad to pretty awesome.  There are a few ads that seem like they only made it this far because they were the only decent entries that came out of a particular region.  But I’d say at least 80% of the finalist spots are very strong.  Here are two of my favorites.  Click the images to view:

Keys by Charles Hayes, USA:  From Mofilm:  Every key has a purpose…and every production has its challenges. Fim Fact: On day one our producer had her car broken into and all the props stolen. But, from the moment we came up with this we knew we had something touching, so through torrential rain, home made jibs and lots of favours, we pushed through and produced something we all love!

Keys

Cindy, I Love You by Jude Chun, Korea:  From Mofilm:  A man goes above and beyond, determined to finish one last item on a bucket list.

Cindy, I Love You

Keys is so professional that it could start airing on TV today and no one would ever suspect it was shot for a video contest.  Cindy, I Love You is pretty weird and the twist at the end is a little grim and heavy-handed but for some reason I just really like it.  Like I said, there are a bunch of good submissions and you should take a few minutes to scroll through Mofilm’s beautiful video gallery.  (Seriously, its classy and clean design puts Doritos obnoxious and loud Crash the Super Bowl gallery to shame.)  But if you only have time to watch one of these ads, watch this one:

Chevy Driving Academy by Kenneth Wales & Jason Lansing, USA:  From Mofilm:  A man is put to the test to see if he has what it takes to become a Chevy driver. Film Fact: The shoot was as intense as the Driving Academy – the actor almost threw up after multiple takes from flipping upside-down, it took 4 hours to hit the mark when shooting the Corvette and the Dealer was never meant to be bald…until they met Amazon!

Chevy Driving Academy

Pretty damn good, huh?  I’ll be amazed if that one doesn’t win the top prize.  To view all of the Chevy finalists, head here:  http://chevroletroute66.msn.com

A somewhat humorous banner

Last week, the new video contest hosting site Highly Humorous launched their third ever contest so I thought I’d take a second and do a quick update on their progress.  It’s really interesting to watch a new site like this as it evolves.  Right now, HH is just running small contests of their own so they can develop a strong talent base before they start running contests for outside companies.  I’m not sure if they came up with that idea on their own but I know that Poptent started the same way.  I looked at some of the first assignments that site ever ran and they were stuff like “make an ad for a fictional cell phone company!”

Highly Humorous’ newest contest is also for a fictional company; 48 Hour Energy.  That’s an energy drink that keeps you wired for two days straight.  I like these test contests because filmmakers are allowed to be irreverent and kind of crazy since there’s no actual sponsor to offend.  The deadline to enter the 48 Hour Energy contest is December 22nd and the top prize is $1,000.  More info here.

Highly Humorous also recently announced the winners of the “SuperHero” test contest and you can see all the results here.  There were some decent entries but I think my favorite was this video that came in third:

Click to view.

I’m not sure how much longer HH plans to do these “test” contests but I’ve been talking to some of the guys running the site and they seem to have some big plans for 2012.  I don’t think this is officially official but it seems like soon HH will be running contests for outside companies where the prizes will be in the $5,000.  So, HH will be a site to keep an eye on in the new year.

Here are  few other random things I want to mention:

If you’re here for Crash the SuperBowl info, we’ll be running a whole bunch of posts about the contest over the next 2 1/2 months. Next week we’ll even be featuring an interview with one of the 2011 CTSB finalists.  And of course, we’ll post the Top 5 videos (along with reviews and analysis) as soon as Doritos makes the results public.

Next I want to say Thanks to all the filmmakers out there that sent in the links to their Doritos entries.  I’ve decided to extend my “free mini-review offer” for a few more days.  So far, I’ve crtiqued more than 100 submissions and I am pretty sure that at least one or two of the videos I’ve seen will wind up making the finals.  If you’d still like to get a mini-review of your ad, please post the link in the comment section of this article:  videocontestnews.com/2011/11/21/we-want-to-see-your-crash-the-super-bowl-entries/

As I’ve mentioned, I’m trying to do the impossible this month.  I’m trying to watch at least a few seconds of every, single Crash the Super Bowl entry.  (By the way, there were just under 5,000 submissions this year.)  My goal is to compile a list of the 50 or so best submissions.  The list will be posted on December 14th.

If you’re a new reader, I just want to mention that Video Contest News is a year-round operation.  We run two or three posts a week about different contests.  If you’re having a problem with a contest, let us know!  Companies hate bad publicity and a single article about a crappy contest can sometimes inspire the sponsors to fix whatever has gone wrong.  Or hey, you can even let us know if you have some good news to report!  We post a lot of winning entries so if you’ve recently won a nice contest prize, I want to hear about it.  You can reach me here:  VideoContestNews@gmail.com.

Finally, if you like you can only stand to read 140 characters of video contest news at a time, follow us on twitter here.  This month we’ll be “following back” all of our new followers!

Doritos: Larger Than Life

It’s been about a week now since the submission period for the 2012 Crash the Super Bowl contest closed and in total it looks like Doritos recived 4,829 entries.  That’s an all time record.  Sure, some of those submissions are duplicates but not many.  This year the Doritos team did a great job of keeping the repeat submissions out of the contest gallery.  In fact, I’d estimate that only 1% of this year’s ads are duplicates.   If we ignore the fact that a few of the entries are repeats, a little math tells us that your odds of making the Top Five are 1 in 965.  That makes this year’s Crash the Super Bowl the most difficult video contest to win, EVER.  So if you entered this year and if you have friends that are really psyched about your chances, you might want to mention the “1 in 965″ odds to them so they won’t be too crushed if you don’t make the finals.

As I explained in my previous post, this year I’m trying to watch (at least a few seconds of) every, single CTSB entry.  My goal is to compile a list of all the best submissions.  (If you made an awesome entry and want to be considered for the list, leave your link in a comment to my last post.)  While scrolling through the contest gallery, every once in a while I’ll come across a commercial that has a recognizable face or two in it.  Over the years, a few “celebrities” have appeared in Crash the Super Bowl entries but using known actors seems to be a big trend this year.

But personally, I think using celebrities in a CTSB entry is a really awful idea for everyone involved.  Before I get into “why” it’s a bad idea, take a minute and check out this Crash the SuperBowl entry featuring Jenny McCarthy.  I can’t embed CTSB videos so you’ll have to click on the image to view it on the contest site:

click to view.

That was seriously a pretty good entry.  The production values where top notch, the premise was funny, the women all looked very nice and it ended with a strong punchline.  I actually think it would be a major contender if it did NOT feature a celebrity.  As it is, there’s just something off-putting about this submission.  It causes the viewer to wonder, “Why the hell is Jenny McCarthy in a Crash the Super Bowl entry?”  And that question leads to more questions like “Is she broke?”  “Does she really need the $25,000 finalist prize that badly?  “Or does she just want the attention of being in a Super Bowl ad?”  But here’s the most relevant question; if Jenny McCarthy wants to do commercials, why doesn’t she just do some?  Is she un-castable or something these days? (NOTE: The answers to all these questions have been answered by one of the directors of this spot! Scroll down for the full story.)

So you see, if you’re a recognizable actor, doing a Crash the Super Bowl entry is is a huge gamble.  Like I said, there’s only a 1 in 965 chance of making the finals.  But there’s a 100% chance that people will wonder why the heck you would stoop to entering a video contest. Ok…maybe some celebrities enter the contest just for the fun of it.  But if a famous person wanted to make a goofy video for fun, they could just do a FunnyorDie sketch for free.  So most of them enter for the obvious reason; the prizes for winning are money and exposure.  But looking desperate for either of those things is not good for an actor’s image.

And I also think it’s a mistake for filmmakers to feature major or minor celebrities in their Doritos ads.  In a way, it goes against the entire point and premise of the Crash the Super Bowl contest.  Doritos runs The Crash every year because they want to find something they can’t get from Hollywood or from a big, Madison Avenue ad firm.  They want quirky, crazy, outside-of-the-box ideas.   In short, they want “User Generated Content.”

The description for Jenny McCarthy’s ad lists two directors.  I googled them and it turns out one of them is her ex-husband.  And he’s also an known actor.  He’s done a lot of TV directing too.  So this entry is the exact OPPOSITE of user-generated content.  Actually, it’s hollywood’s take on user-generated content.  And that is the thing that bothers me most about these “celebrity” entries.  They have an air of hubris to them.  It’s like an NBA player walking onto a basketball court in a big city, public park thinking he’s going to blow everyone’s minds just because he’s a pro.  But no one likes it when a pro chooses to compete against amateurs simply because they’ll be easier to beat. Before I make another weird analogy, check out this other CTSB entry that features boy-banders Lance Bass and AJ Mclean:

Again, click to view.

Now that ad wasn’t so great.  The only thing it has going for it is that it has two famous people in it.  But right now, the people that produced this ad are probably patting themselves on the back for being smart enough/rich enough/well connected enough to cast Lance Bass and AJ Mclean. They didn’t have to waste time writing a stronger script because two celebrities trump great writing any day…right?

Let’s be honest; the vast majority of Crash the Super Bowl entries are awful.  It’s very hard for an “average joe” to make a tight, professional looking 30 second commercial for no money.  And that’s why I think celebrities agree to be in CTSB ads.  Some friend or nephew or ex-husband finds the contest and thinks, “wow, these commercials all suck! If I spent a few grand and hired a real crew and got my pal, insert-celebrity’s name here to be in my video I would win easy!”  But these folks don’t “get” the contest.  Presumably they think that their celebrity entry will be much more desirable than the thousands of entries that just feature regular jerk-offs from Nowheresville, USA.  If Doritos has to choose between a commercial that features Jenny McCarthy and a commercial that features a bunch of nobodies, Doritos will obviously pick the Jenny McCarthy ad…right?

Wrong.  Because if Doritos wanted to air a commercial featuring Jenny McCarthy in a bikini, they would just hire Jenny McCarthy and stick he in a bikini.  They wouldn’t bother to run a 10 million dollar “consumer generated” commercial contest if they wanted a  typical, “hollywood” ad.  So I don’t think we’ll ever see a “celebrity” entry make the CTSB finals.  If we did, it would probably mark the end of the entire contest.  Because if Doritos tells us that to win, an entry should have a celebrity in it, why would us regular jerk-offs from Nowheresville even bother to compete?

The entries that have recognizable actors in them are pretty interesting though.  Some of them are pretty good and some of them are a little lame.  Some where clearly made by pros with deep pockets who were able to hire known actors, while other entries seem like maybe they were made by the celebrity’s nephew and the actor is appearing as a favor.  Here are the 2011 celebrity ads I’ve been able to find so far.  If you see any other ones, leave a link in the comments.

The Eric Roberts Show: Featuring Eric Roberts:

I always liked Eric Roberts. And he's actually pretty funny in this.

Tasty as Charged: Featuring Jerry Adler:

You might not recognize the name but this guy has been in a billion TV shows and movies

Eyes Teeth: Featuring Sam Lloyd:

It's Ted from Scrubs! And he's in a weirdly hilarious CTSB entry!

Party Time:  Featuring Blake Clark and Peter Dante:

Wait a second...both of these guys have been in a ton of Adam Sandler movies. I wonder who made this spot.

Despite my bitching, some of those were pretty good.  But nothing can top the epicness of this celebrity Pepsi Max entry from Last year’s Crash the Super Bowl contest:

Pretty damn crazy, right?  But that spot did not make the finals last year.  So If an entry that features a rampaging Ernest Borgnine couldn’t win this contest, I don’t think this year’s crop of celebrity entries stand much chance either.

11/29/2011 UPDATE: The mystery of the Jenny McCarthy ad has been solved! One of the directors actually found this article and he was good enough to explain how the ad came to be. Here’s his full comment:

Hey Beardy

Jenny McCarthy is doing this in the hopes to help http://www.generationrescue.org/. When we got the news from your site ( “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!” ) We thought we would give it a shot too. Fair is fair..

Thanks for checking out the spot!

John A.

p.s. your site rocks!

Well now, do I feel like an asshole or what??  Not only did Jenny McCarthy and her team shoot an entry as a way to raise money to combat autism, they found out about the details of the Doritos contest from this website!  Though to be fair, the lonely Island guys were hired by doritos to shoot a super bowl ad this year.  They’re not actually competing against the little guys for a slot in the finals.  Their commercial is guaranteed to air.  But still, it’s nice to hear that this was for a not for profit endeavor.  So, good for them!