In the Doritos Skybox. From left to right: Kyle Gerardi, Nick Dimondi, Joshua Svoboda, Barrett Phillips. Not Pictured (others involved in the commercials) Wes Phillips, Dale Backus (Producers) Brian Oliver and Rosie the dog (Actors in Underdog) and Wayne Phillips (the old man Kids These Days).

Though four consumer-made Doritos commercials aired during the Superbowl back in February, the big winner of this year’s Crash the Superbowl contest were a group of friends from North Carolina who operate under the banner, 5 Point Productions. Last December, that small team of independent filmmakers learned that both entries they shot for the 2009/2010 installment of the contest made it to the finals.  When you consider that Doritos received more than 4,000 submissions this year and only picked 6 finalist videos, getting 2 of the 6 top spots is really an incredible achievement.

And if you aren’t impressed enough yet, here’s another amazing fact;  The 5 Point Productions team also WON the Crash the Superbowl contest the first year it ran in 2006/2007.

When I first heard that one team had gotten two commercials into Doritos’ “Top 6” I was stunned.  And when I realized that these guys were the same filmmakers that won the first CTSB contest I was almost ready to start screaming “shenanigans!”  But before I could even develop a decent conspiracy theory, I got a message from one of the producers of the two 5 Point entries (entitled “Kids These Days” and “Underdog”) and he explained that Doritos had no idea that the two entries were made by the same team.  It‘s easy to believe it was all just a coincidence because both of the team’s entries are just that good!  “Underdog” was actually my favorite entry even before the finalists were announced and I thought it would have a very good chance of scoring big on the USA Today ad meter.  Turns out I was right. “Underdog” went on to be one of the four finalist videos to air during the superbowl and was ranked the #2 best commercial of the game on the USA Today Ad Meter.  That feat earned the team a bonus of $600,000 from Doritos.

When you ball all that good news together you know what you get?  The greatest set of accomplishments in video contest history, that’s what.  Sure, the Herbert Brothers landed the #1 spot on the USA Today ad meter and earned a million dollar bonus last year for their CTSB entry, “Free Doritos” but I think the combined achievements of the 5 Point Productions team top that easily.  For God’s sake, they won 2 out of the 3 years the contest has been run!  That’s amazing.  I was really interested in hearing some behind the scenes details about this whole thing and one of the producers of “Underdog” and “Kids these Days,” Kyle Girardi offered to answer a few questions.  Before we get into his answers, here are his team’s Crash the Superbowl spots:

The above is the 5 Point Team’s entry for the 2006/2007 Crash the Superbowl contest, “Live the Flavor.”  This commercial went on to be the CTSB winner and aired during the game in ‘07.  This was for the first installment of the contest and back then, the prize for making it to the finals was $10,000 and there were no bonuses to be won if your ad made it to air.

Here’s the team’s 2009/2010 entry “Kids These Days.”  This spot was selected by Doritos as one of this year’s 6 finalists.  The prize for being a finalist is $25,000.

Finally, here’s the team’s other 2009/2010 entry, “Underdog.”  This commercial ALSO made it to the finals and so they recived an additional $25,000 finalist prize.  On top of that of course, they also recived a $600,000 bonus for scoring so well on the ad meter.  “Underdog” was the only Doritos commercial to crack the Top 10 on the ad meter on Superbowl sunday.

Now that you’re caught up, let’s get on with the interview!

————————————-

VCN: So who and what is 5 Point Productions?

KYLE:  That’s kind of a tough one. 5 Point was started in 2007 when they made the first Doritos ad. Josh Svoboda and I weren’t part of the team at that time, but we were good friends with most of them from middle school. Its only been about a year that he and I have really been an active part of the 5 Point team. As for 5 Point’s future: “Underdog” and “Kids These Days” might be the last you see of 5 Point, we’re gonna try and take a few jobs if we need them, but right now the main focus is on a short film.

VCN:  What kind of gear did you use to shoot “Underdog” and “Kids These Days?” Do you own your gear?

KYLE:  We used the Canon 5D Mark II to shoot both commercials. It’s a pretty inexpensive camera that shoots incredible HD footage, so we had to get one.

VCN:  I was amazed when I found out that one team of filmmakers had gotten two entries in the finals this year and I was totally blown away when I found out that you guys were the winners of the 2007 contest. Did Doritos know “Underdog” and “Kids These Days” were by you guys? If not, how did they react when they found out?

KYLE:  No, they didn’t know at first. We put different names and addresses on the commercials just in case they liked them both. We couldn’t believe for the longest time that both were finalist, we thought some sorry son of a bitch was playing a joke on us.

VCN:  Did anyone ever worry that it might look kind of suspicious that the 2007 winners did so well again this year? Do you think Doritos would have picked both your videos if they knew who made them?

KYLE:  I think so. Josh’s name was on Underdog and he had no connection with the competition in 2007 whatsoever. However, “Kids These Days” had the name of one the people involved in the 2007 commercial, but I like to think they just picked it because they thought it was a great spot.

VCN:  A few days before the Superbowl, CBS aired a TV special about Superbowl commercials and they aired “Kids these Days” and said it was one of the ads that were going to play on Sunday. It of course didn’t air though. Did you guys get a ton of calls from people telling you your ad was going to air? Do you know how or why that happened?

KYLE:  I don’t know what that was about, but our phones were ringing off the hook. I tried not to pay much attention to it, but I figured if CBS was airing the Super Bowl they knew what commercials that were going to play… It kind of killed my buzz. I always had a lot more faith in Underdog, truth be told.

VCN:  “Underdog” was the first CTSB winner of the night to air. Was there a special reason for that?

KYLE:  Probably because I was being a little weirdo during the Super Bowl. I think they just called CBS and told them to play it first so I would calm the hell down. It’s torture not knowing if your commercial is gonna air or not, and I had no idea I’d handle pressure so terribly. My heart was about to pound out of my chest during every commercial break. If it weren’t for the 2 Xanax I took before the game I most likely would have had a heart attack.

VCN:  Do you guys know how your videos did in the online voting? Do you know if you made the top three or do you think that “Underdog” might have been Dortio’s choice as the bonus ad?

KYLE:  I’m not going to say how I know, but I know for a fact we had enough votes to make top 3.

VCN:  How did you guys find out you won 2nd place on the ad meter? How’d you celebrate?

KYLE:  It was actually Dave Herbert who told us at first, he had his cell phone on him and was surfing the web. It wasn’t really set in stone until Rudy Wilson (CEO Doritos) got up in front of everyone on the bus ride back to the hotel and said “I’m out $600 grand, because Underdog got 2nd place.”

I remember the feeling that came over me, the first thing that popped in my head was “I can finally make a movie.” I can’t think of a happier moment in my life. That night we didn’t really celebrate that much. We had a few beers and got to say goodbye to everyone… It was really sad leaving those guys, all the other finalists are amazing people. Believe it or not I was hoping to see Snack Attack or Smackout play in the 4th spot over “Kids These Days.”

VCN:  You obviously spent a lot of time with the Crash the Superbowl folks. Did you get the impression that they will bring the contest back this fall?

KYLE:  I think they will. It looked like they got just as big a rush out of it as we did.

VCN:  What do you guys plan to do now?

KYLE:  We got some attention from the commercials, so we’re gonna try and make some extra dough. Within the next month or so I’d also like to get rolling on a short film.

VCN:  If the CTSB contest comes back, would you guys be up for replacing the Herbert Brothers as the “Kings of the Crash” and being the contest’s spokesmen? (I think that’d be great and I hope that’s what happens)

KYLE:  Certainly not me personally. I’m way to ugly to be in front of the camera.

VCN:  You guys certainly seem to have figured out the recipe for success in this particular contest. Have any advise for aspiring Crash the Superbowl contestants?

KYLE:  I guess just don’t be too hard on yourself. Before I knew we were finalists I was convinced that “Underdog” and “Kids These Days” were the two biggest piles of shit on the planet. I couldn’t believe Doritos picked them. Sorry, I know “believe in yourself” sounds lame.

VCN:  Thanks a ton to Kyle for taking the time to answer our questions and congratulations to all of his teammates!

]]> http://videocontestnews.com/2010/03/15/vcn-interview-with-crash-the-superbowl-co-winner-kyle-gerardi/feed/ 2 http://videocontestnews.com/2010/02/08/dueling-caskets-full-of-doritos/ http://videocontestnews.com/2010/02/08/dueling-caskets-full-of-doritos/#comments Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:46:43 +0000 Dan http://videocontestnews.com/?p=1527

Image from one of Doritos' Crash the Super Bowl winners; Casket

Back in October, I wrote, directed and edited an entry for Doritos’ annual Crash the Superbowl contest entitled, “Rest in Chips.”  My commercial was about a dead guy who’s last wish was to be buried in a casket full of Doritos but to the surprise of everyone at his funeral, it turns out he faked his death and is alive inside the casket of chips that eventually gets knocked over.  Sound familiar?  It might if you watched the Super Bowl last night.  Because during the first quarter of the big game, Doritos aired the three winners of the Crash the Super Bowl contest and the third winning ad they showed just happened to be about a dead guy who’s last wish was to be buried in a casket full of Doritos but to the surprise of everyone at his funeral, it turns out he faked his death and is alive inside the casket of chips that eventually gets knocked over!

Unfortunately, it wasn’t MY fake-funeral/Casket-full-of-Doritos-that-gets-knocked-over entry.  It was another entry called “Casket” and it was created by a team of filmmakers from a “non-denominational megachurch” in LA called Mosaic that’s popular with aspiring filmmakers and actors. The church is headed by a well known author, producer and self-professed leader named Erwin Mcmanus and he funded the production of “Casket.”  (you can read about Mosaic and their Crash the Superbowl aspirations here)  Here’s their ad:

I’m sorry to say it but I suspect that the team that made “Casket” may have stolen several of their ideas from me.  How can that be?  Well first, here is the entry that I created for the Crash the Super Bowl contest, “Rest in Chips:”

Sure, they’re not on the same level technically, but there are so many similarities between the stories of “Casket” and “Rest in Chips” that I’ve had a hard time accepting that they’re just coincidences.  If you ignore the aesthetic differences between the two entries (camera quality, location, music) you’ll see that they share many common key elements.  (The kind of stuff you’d see in the scripts for each spot)  Really, the only significant difference in the two stories is WHY the two “dead” guys each decide to fake their deaths.  Other than that, in just 30 seconds, both ads manage to feature:

1. A dead man’s last wish to be buried in a casket full of Doritos

2. A “dead” man who turns out to actually be alive

3. A fake funeral orchestrated by the “dead” man as part of a nefarious scheme

4. A framed photo of the “dead” guy enjoying a bag of Doritos next to the casket

5. Shots of that guy in his casket buried up to his face in chips

6. Unsuspecting mourners who scream/gasp in surprise when the hoax is revealed

7. A climax in which the “dead” guy gets his comeuppance when the casket of chips is knocked over

That’s a lot for just 30 seconds, isn’t it!?  Well, the coincidences don’t stop there.  As it turns out, all of those elements can also be found in this crude animated storyboard that I made weeks before I went out and shot my entry:

Yeah…see where I’m going with this?  I created that storyboard as a test to see if I could fit all the dialogue and action into 30 seconds.  Then I posted it to youtube so that I could send the link to friends so they could give feedback on the idea.  The above version was posted to youtube on October 12^th, 2009.  But that is actually the second version.  I posted the first version of the storyboard video on October 6^th and named it “Doritos Storyboard.”  After about a week, a friend actually said to me, “aren’t you worried that another contestant could see that and steal your idea?”  I realized he was right and that I had made a dumb mistake.  Because the video was named “Doritos Storyboard,” any prospective Crash the Superbowl contestant who went to youtube to watch last year’s winning entries or other Doritos-related videos for inspiration could have seen my storyboard.  In fact, it would have appeared at the top of the page if the results were “sorted by date.”  So I pulled the original version and replaced it with the generically named “Dortest” version around October 12^th.

The funeral photo used in "Casket"

A week or so after the submission period for the Crash the Superbowl contest closed, I saw “Casket” and I was flabbergasted.  I remembered the storyboard on youtube and immediately suspected that I had been ripped off.  I had to do something about it so I did what any self-respecting dork would do.  I blogged about it. I first compared the two ads in this blog post from November 19^th:  A Tale of Two Caskets (full of Doritos.) Since “Casket” was so slickly produced, I was worried right from the start that it might make it to the finals.  So while Doritos was still evaluating all 4,000+ entries they received, I e-mailed them my concerns on December 9^th.  They responded to my e-mail and said the company’s “legal team” would look into it.

Since the official rules said that Doritos judges were supposed to assign each entry a score, and since 40% of that score was supposed to be based on “originality and creativity,” I assumed that even if there wasn’t plagiarism, I uploaded my casket-full-of-doritos entry to the contest site first, so logically, that would impact “Casket’s” originality score.  And in a competition with 4,000+ submissions, the Top 6 videos would probably be decided by just fractions of a point.  So losing even a few originality points would end an entry’s chances of winning, right?

Boy was I wrong about that one.  On January 5^th, 2010, “Casket” was announced as one of Doritos’ 6 CTSB finalists.  And man, let me tell you, I flipped the F%^& out.  I wasn’t just mad because a team of filmmakers that may have ripped me off had just won $25,000 and a trip to the Super Bowl, though.  In a way, I was much more upset with Doritos.  They knew that somewhere out there a filmmaker suspected that the “Casket” team had plagiarized his entry/storyboard.  There were tons and tons of awesome videos submitted to this year’s competition. Why did they have to pick the one video that they knew would drive some poor guy crazy and maybe even get them into legal trouble!?

The funeral photo used in "Rest in Chips"

A single question has been on my mind since I first saw “Casket” back in November.  “When did they come up with that idea?”  Obviously the entry was a very elaborate production.  Maybe they had spent months working on the thing.  If it turned out that the team came up with the concept for their entry prior to say, the start of October, then there was no chance they could have stolen the concept from me….unless they were mind readers.

I’m not insane and I’m not some jerk who likes ruining other people’s moments of glory.  I absolutely, positively do not want to paint anyone as plagiarists if they’re totally innocent.  I also really do not want to put my life on hold while I engage in a copyright battle with a megachurch and a multinational corporation if I don’t have to.  In the last few weeks I have exchanged many e-mails with FritoLay and the lawyer for the “Casket” team (yes…they already got a lawyer and it seems like he was hired just to deal with this issue.) I have asked them over and over and over and over to PLEASE, send me some kind of documents, materials or other proof that “Casket” was an independent creation that wasn’t wrongfully derived from my works.  My sincere hope has been that someone would want to provide me some kind of evidence that would put me, and my family and friends who support me, at ease.  I would have been happy just to see some copies of some e-mails that showed that their idea pre-dated the creation of my script for “Rest in Chips.”  If they could prove they were innocent, or even just offer a credible explanation, then I could apologize, drop the whole thing and move on with my life.

The beautifully drawn funeral photo from the storyboard video for "Rest in Chips"

But even though the filmmakers behind “Casket” have known for weeks, and probably even months that some crackpot out in the suburbs of Chicago was accusing them of plagiarism they have not done one thing to counter my claims.  I have asked repeatedly for some shred of proof that they weren’t guilty of ripping me off.  But according to their lawyer, they don’t want to give me ammunition in case I sue them.

Let’s cut the BS here.  If there was some A%&hole running around the Internet, endangering my commercial’s chances of airing during the Superbowl and telling Doritos and the rest of the world that I might have stolen some of their ideas, you know what I’d do?  I’d shut that guy down immediately with a big facefull of proof.  I’d e-mail the guy and tell him he was full of s%^&.  I’d write my own blog posts and fill them with proof that my works were independent creations.  For God’s sakes, I’d offer to take a lie detector test if the guy wanted me to!  I would immediately do whatever it took to shut down a false accusation of plagiarism against me.

Now what I wouldn’t do is hire a lawyer if I had nothing to hide and I certainly wouldn’t keep my “proof” hidden from the world.  I think the thing that most makes me believe that I was ripped off is the fact that none of these people have ever contacted me to simply say “You’re wrong, and here’s why….”

The other thing that makes me think I was ripped off are the cold, hard, dirty facts.

Alive in a casket full of Doritos. From "Casket"

Here are my facts:  I wrote my script for “Rest in Chips” around October 1^st.  I created an awesome-looking animated storyboard based on my script and first uploaded it to youtube on October 6^th. That video could have been seen by anyone searching for Doritos-related videos up until about October 12^th.  I shot my entry on October 25^th, I posted my first rough cut to the web on October 28^th and I uploaded my final entry to the Crash the Super Bowl contest site around November 5^th.

Because Doritos and the Mosaic team would not even tell me WHEN the idea for “Casket” was born, I decided to do some digging myself.  And by “digging” I mean I just read the articles that showed up in my google alert notices.  The information below all comes from interview quotes from members of the “Casket” team.  These are my sources (1) (2) (3) (4)  Here’s what I’ve learned in the last few weeks:

1.  The idea for “Casket” was first suggested in a Mosaic pitch meeting that seems to have taken place in early October, probably around October 9^th.

2.  The idea for “Casket” was pitched by one member of the group.  The group decided to shoot the idea and the person who suggested the idea then “wrote the original script.”

3. At least 4 other people are credited as having co-written or contributed to the script for “Casket.”

4. “Casket” was shot in one day on November 1^st and the entry was uploaded just before the deadline on November 9^th.

Alive in a Casket full of Doritos. "Rest in Chips"

As I said, members of the “Casket” team shared all of this information during interviews so unless they all lied to several reporters, the above points are facts.  And these facts line up perfectly with my theory of how I may have been plagiarized.  FritoLay has had a timeline of when I created the various incarnations of my Crash the Superbowl entry since mid-December.  I explained weeks ago that I wrote my script shortly after the Crash the Superbowl contest began and then created an animated storyboard version of my script and uploaded it to youtube on October 6^th.

For roughly a week, the storyboard was on youtube and could be seen by anyone doing a search for videos tagged “Doritos.”  The “Casket” team has gone on record stating that from the day they decided to shoot an entry for this contest to the day they uploaded their video, only a month had gone by.  That means that their pitch meting seems to have happened right at the time my storyboard was visible on youtube.

Alive in a casket full of Doritos. From the video storyboard for "Rest in Chips"

I find it very hard to believe that not one member of a large, well-organized team of professional filmmakers went to youtube before their pitch session to research last year’s winning entries and watch other Doritos related videos.  I have known about the Mosaic pitch meeting for a while and my theory has been that one member of the team prepared for that pitch meeting by doing some Doritos research on youtube beforehand.  While there, they saw my storyboard, realized the idea would work great in one of Mosaic’s churches (I think they have 7 total) and probably figured that the concept was fair game and took it.  Now that I know when that pitch meeting took place, I suspect that my theory accurately describes how things happened.  And since it seems that as many as 5 people contributed to the story of “Casket,” that explains the differences between my works and the final version of the other team’s entry.

The goal of Doritos’ Crash the Superbowl contest was for the winners to score a spot in the “Top 3” on the USA Today ad meter.  If one of the Doritos finalists were to be ranked the best spot of the game, the creators would get a million bucks.  Second best would get the filmmakers $600K and 3^rd would get them $400K.  The ad meter results are in and one Doritos ad actually scored the #2 spot.  But “Casket” wound up being ranked #14.  (click here for the full ad meter results)

I mention this because I want everyone reading this to understand that there is no big jackpot that I am trying to grab a piece of here.  All the makers of “Casket” got was $25,000 and I’m sure that money is already divided up and gone.  So my concerns aren’t part of some crass sue-a-church-and-get-rich-quick scheme.  For me, this is about principle and as I’ve told the lawyers at Doritos many times, my number one goal is simply to find out the truth about what the heck happened here.

Now that the contest is all over, I really don’t know what I should do next.  Should I get a lawyer?  Should I seal myself up in a casket full of Doritos and pretend this never happened?  What the heck is the little guy supposed to do in this country when he suspects that some giant megachurch with deep pockets and lawyers on retainer infringed on his copyrights?

Right now, the only thing I know for sure is that next year, I’m entering Careerbuilder’s Super Bowl commercial contest.

BTW:  I normally post under the pseudonym “Beardy” but here’s info about the real me.  Ironically, I do not actually have a beard.  If anyone (even a member of the “Casket” team) wants to contact me I can be reached at Videocontestnews@gmail.com.

1. Underdog. Created by Nick Dimondi/Joshua Svoboda

2. House Rules. Created by Joelle de Jesus

3. Casket. Created by Kevin T. Willson

SURPRISE BONUS AD. Snack Attack Samurai. Created by Ben Krueger

A few days ago I explained here and here that it looked like Doritos had already revealed the names of the Crash the Super Bowl entries that were going to air tonight. The finalist entries that were publicly identified as destined for air last week were Snack Attack Samurai, Kids These Days and Casket. Looks like those predictions were off by one. But hey, way back in December, before the finalists were even announced, we predicted in this post that “Underdog” would go all the way this year. So hurray for us!

UPDATE: Oh snap!!!! The Ad Meter results are in and UNDERDOG was rated the second best commercial of the entire game right after the Betty White/Snickers spot! That means the makers of Underdog, 5 Points Productions will be receiving a $600,000 bonus from Doritos. As for the other three Crash the Super Bowl entries that aired tonight….well, they didn’t fare so well. None of them even cracked the top 10. Here are the numbers.

1. Underdog. Ad Meter Score: 8.27. Ad Meter Rank: #2

2. House Rules. Ad Meter Score: 7.12. Ad Meter Rank: #11

3. Casket. Ad Meter Score: 7.00. Ad Meter Rank: #14

4. Snack Attack Samurai. Ad Meter Score: 6.79. Rank: #17

Now even though none of the other ads made the top 3, the scores are still quite impressive. After all, there were 60 commercials ranked by the ad meter. Plus since Snack Attack Samurai aired so late in the game I bet its score suffered because the focus groups in the Ad Meter polling were probably a little burnt out by then. You can see the full list of ad meter results here: USA Today Ad Meter.

So what did we learn tonight? Well, we learned that Beardy is a genius! We totally called this one. Over the last few weeks we’ve repeatedly claimed that “Underdog” was going to make it to the top three and not only that, we predicted that it was the only one of the six finalists that had a chance of doing so.

Seriously though, now that the dust is settling it’s clear that the big winner of the 2010 installment of the CTSB contest is 5 Points Productions. Though the Crash the Super Bowl contest has only been run three times, that plucky team of filmmakers from North Carolina have now won the competition TWICE! The 5 Points entry “Live the Flavor” won the first installment of the CTSB contest and aired during the 2007 Super Bowl. Now their entry “Underdog” has also came out on top. Plus they were the first filmmakers ever to get TWO entries in the finals in one year!!  (The other was Kids These Days)  That’s three unbelievable achievements so it looks like Doritos should get ready to crown them as the new, “Kings of the Crash.”  They’ve earned it.

Last night, CBS aired a special called “The Superbowl’s Greatest Commercials.”  It was basically just an hour-long run-down of popular Superbowl ads from the past.  But at the end of the show, they revealed snippets of several ads that will be airing during this year’s Superbowl.  Here’s what the host said when introducing the montage:

“Here’s a sneak peak of a few more spots that will air during the big game.”

The montage didn’t include many commercials, but it did include footage from 2 of the 6 Crash the Superbowl finalists; SNACK ATTACK SAMURAI and KIDS THESE DAYS.  You can watch the entire show at CBS.com for free, but the sneak peek segment is actually available on it’s own.  Click here to watch it.

I really don’t know what to think about this.  Did Doritos really just announce two of the three commercials that won the Crash the Superbowl competition early?  I’m leaning towards “yes.”  CBS just declared to the world that those commercials “will air during the big game.”  That’s a definitive statement right there and if CBS doesn’t air those two ads, I’m sure a crafty lawyer could paint that as breach of a verbal contract or something.  At the very least, they’d be unfairly getting the hopes up of the projected winners.  I mean, could you imagine the phone calls that the makers of these two entries must have been getting when that show aired?  Would Doritos really put them in a position where they would have to tell all of their friends and family that CBS was wrong about which ads CBS was going to air on Sunday?

The case for the early reveal seems more plausible when you remember the way that the top 6 finalists were announced this year.  Hours before the official announcement, USAtoday ran a story about this year’s Superbowl ads that identified “Casket” as one of Dorito’s finalists.  So clearly, Doritos already broken with tradition this year and leaked information early to the media.

On the other hand, if you watch the entire montage you’ll notice something fishy.  Remember the Careerbuilder “Hire My TV Ad” Superbowl commercial contest?  Careerbuilder picked three home-made ads and then re-shot the ideas professionally.  All three of the re-shoots can be seen here:  http://www.careerbuilder.com/tv/

According to the Hire My TV ad website, Careerbuilder was going to pick JUST ONE of these three remakes and air them during the game on Sunday.  But the “Superbowl’s Greatest Commercials” montage includes footage from ALL THREE Careerbuilder ads….including the commercial that CBS already turned down because of lewd content, i.e., a flaming fart.  The Hire my TV ad website has that ad, entitled “Worst Seat,” as labeled “Too Hot For TV.”

So either Careerbuilder decided to buy 2 more commercial slots and CBS changed their mind about the “Too Hot for TV” ad, or the above montage contains commercials that will not air during the Superbowl

Think about it this way; it must be hard to get companies to reveal their Superbowl ads early.  Maybe that’s why 5 of the ads in the montage are commercials that have already been seen all over the web.  So it’s quite possible that the producers of “The Superbowl’s Greatest Commercials” were just lazy and instead of explaining that some of the featured ads MIGHT air on Sunday, they just lumped them in with the other sure things.  I guess we’ll find out the answer in just a few more days.

2/6 UPDATE: Hmmmm, yesterday, USA Today released it’s official list of all the commercials that will air during the Superbowl.  Careerbuilder is listed as only airing one ad.  So now we know for sure that 2 of the ads in the CBS montage won’t air during the game.  Unless the careerbuilder contestants already knew which ad was going to air, that was  areal punk move by CBS.  The might have got a lot of people’s hopes up for nothing.  Same goes for the Crash the Superbowl finalists.  I still think that the two featured Doritos ads will air, but now nothing looks 100% for sure.

Yesterday, voting in Doritos’ Crash the Superbowl contest came to a close and I’m sure all the finalists are relived that they can finally stop hustling for votes and catch their breath.  By now, Doritos probably knows which three ads will be airing during the big game but for the rest of us, we won’t find out until the winning commercials actually air on Sunday.  As if the month of vote-grubbing wasn’t brutal enough, the finalists won’t even know if they won or lost until they are sitting in the Doritos skybox, watching the game on TV.

A free trip to the Superbowl has got to be a lot of fun.  But how much can you enjoy it if you have to spend the whole weekend wondering what the fate of your entry is?  It’s gotta be rough.  And Doritos films all the finalists as they sit and watch the game happen on TV.  Imagine what it would feel like to be one of the 6 finalists on Superbowl sunday.  You’re watching the game from the skybox and then the Doritos folks hustle you over to a TV.  You sit and watch and….a commercial that isn’t yours plays.  The winner flips out and you congratulate him and go back to the game.  Now there are only two spots left.  So you have to wait and wait and endure this pattern two more times.

Here’s an interesting news story I found from last year about the Herbert Brothers Crash the Superbowl experience.  If you skip past their ad, you’ll see some footage that was shot inside the Doritos skybox.  They even show the moment when everyone saw that “Free Doritos” was the ad that made it to air.  (as a surprise, they also aired a second CTSB ad later in the game.)  When the big reveal happens, everyone seems pretty happy for the Herbert Brothers, but I bet there was more that one person in that room that felt like jumping through the skybox window at that moment.

By now you’ve probably heard that CBS has agreed to air a pro-life commercial featuring Heisman troy winner Tim Tebow during the Superbowl next month.  In the ad, Tebow supposedly discusses how his mother got sick on a missionary trip while she was pregnant with him and despite doctor’s advice to get an abortion, she didn’t.  Tebow isn’t shy about his Christianity (see picture left) and he raised the $2.5 million necessary to air the ad during the big game himself.

But 2.5 Million dollars is a lot of money.  So that wasn’t his Plan A.  Apparently, Tebow originally hoped that he could get his message out for free by winning Dortios’ Crash the Superbowl contest.  Check out Tim Tebow’s anti-abortion/pro-dortios entry below!

UCB's embed feature is wonky so click the pic to watch the video

Ok, obviously that’s not real and was produced by the Upright Citizen’s Brigade.  But if you take out all the non-doritos stuff, that would be a really decent Crash the Superbowl entry!  All it needed was some canned classical music and a ninja or a zombie and I would have believed it was a real submission.

I don’t know if this article appeared in the print addition of Adweek magazine or just on the website.  But I do know the author of the piece, Barbara Lippert pretty much thinks Doritos’ Crash the superbowl finalists and most User-generated content, suck hard.  Here’s a taste of the article:

“I’ve just looked at the six finalists in Doritos’ “Crash the Super Bowl” contest, and before going any further, I’d like to ask: Do I really have to pick one?  Chosen from more than 4,000 entries by Doritos marketing people and agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, among others, these six really are that bad. Basically, the choices boil down to how you like your main character — smacked, zapped, bloodied or strangled. Oh, there’s also a fat slob who’s voluntarily been buried alive in a coffin full of Doritos. Hey, even Homer Simpson didn’t think of that one!” (lol, but I did!- Beardy)

“There’s no use bemoaning the uniformity of lame ideas here. Cheap production budgets produce cheap laughs. (And obviously, particularly since the advent of YouTube, the American public has been fed a steady diet of violent and dumb video jokes over the years.) The end product, the Super Bowl spots, are the Oreos atop the cake, the icing on the salty snack.”

Well shit lady, tell us what you really think!  Obviously, a lot of people think the Crash the Superbowl finalists this year are kinda on the lame side.  But the author of the adweek article uses the crappiness of some of the Doritos videos as proof that we little guys can never match the brilliant work that Madison avenue cranks out.  She says….

“Here, in a nutshell, is why we need real newspapers, not just bloggers, and real ad agencies, not just amateurs trying it at home. Depth. If Apple’s “1984″ were made by these people, you could forget about allusions to a famous book (what?) or political philosophy (huh?). The sledgehammer would hit Big Brother in the balls.”

If Apple were to put up 5 million in prizes for  “deep” Superbowl commercials you know what would happen?  They’d get 4,000 entries and I bet at least 6 of them would be hella’ deep.  But we’re talking about a contest held by a chip company, aren’t we?  There’s not a lot of room for depth now is there.  Just think, have you ever seen a “professionally” made Doritos commercial that was deep?  Plus, comparing a legendary, 26 year old,  Superbowl commercial with 6 user-generated ads from 2010 is a little unfair.  If the author wanted her comparison to be more appropriate, she would compare this batch of finalist entries to commercials that ran during the most recent Superbowl.  Like maybe that Cheetos ad where the girl gets pigeons to attack (and presumably poop on) a loudmouth on a cell phone.  Or maybe any Godaddy.com ad ever that features a girl stopping just short of getting naked and then implying you can see the uncensored version of the ad on the Godaddy website.  Yep….pure class.  We amateurs should be ashamed of ourselves.

At least the author is willing to admit that last year’s winner, Free Doritos wasn’t as terrible as this year’s finalists.  She says “Compared to this year’s crop, that ad was positively Bergman-esque.”  Then she goes on to bash specific finalists:

“Most of the credit for this year’s ideas should go to Mo, Larry, Curley & Associates. There’s yet another entry involving a vending machine, and one with a dog who puts his no-bark collar on a cruel human. The faux corpse munching on chips in his coffin is an insult to people who value a Christian funeral, never mind an affront to sexy, non-slobby vampires everywhere.”

You really should check out the whole article.  It’s brimming with disdain for “user-generated content.”  Here it is:  CHIPS OFF THE OLD BLOCK.

The comments from people that obviously make their living creating commercials are pretty harsh too.  Last week, I encouraged VCN readers to support and vote for the Crash the Superbowl finalist that I though had the best chance of scoring in the Top 3 in the ad meter.  (Underdog)  It’s not so much that I am worried how Doritos will look if they have to air 3, kinda lame ads, but I’m worried that we, the amateurs, the content-creating users, the freelances and the little guys will look like we weren’t able to step up and create top notch material even when 5 million bucks is on the line.

Did Doritos do a great job picking their 6 finalists this year?  No.  Will marketing people watch the 3 CTSB commercials that air during the superbowl and assume that Doritos picked bad ads?  No.  They will simply assume that the 3 ads that air are the best of the best.  They must be, they made it to the Superbowl, didn’t they?

And that’s what frustrates me.  The more successful the Crash the Superbowl campaign is, the more imitation contests will spring up this year.  Most of us will never win a big-money contest like CTSB, be we sure as heck have a good chance at winning smaller contests.  And the reason there are so many of those smaller contests happening these days is because Doritos showed that when given a chance, we the viewers could deliver awesome content.

But what is Doritos showing the world we can do this year?  If YOU weren’t impressed by this year’s crop of CTSB finalists, imagine how people in the ad industry (the ones who might want to do similar contests of their own someday) will react to the selected ads.  Oh…I guess you don’t have to imagine.  Just read the Adweek article.

A few posts back I said I’d be reviewing all 6 of Doritos’s Crash the Superbowl finalists.  Well, after discovering a free graph making program on-line where you can make the points look like little Doritos, I’ve decided to do something way geekier.  Instead of doing straight reviews, I’m going to throw some hardcore graph action in your face and try to predict how each commercial might score on the real USA Today Ad Meter.

These graphs won’t show my personal opinions.  Rather, they will show what I expect the average opinions of everyone in the USA Today focus group might be.  If you missed our explanation the other day about how the USA Today Superbowl ad meter works, check it out here. Remember, USA Today’s focus groups include people from all walks of life.  So no matter how much 90% of the group likes a certain ad, there will always be at least a few people who dislike it.

Predicting how a commercial will score on the Ad Meter isn’t actually that tough.  The moments that people will score highly are easy to identify.  So even if the scores on these graphs don’t match what the real scores would look like, the peaks and valleys will appear in the same places.  So here we go.  I’ll put the ads in order of best scoring to worst:

1.  UNDERDOG.  PREDICTED SCORE:  8.19

SUMMARY:  The guys who made this spot knew what they were doing.  It’s essentially designed to score well in the Ad Meter.  EVERYONE loves dogs and EVERYONE hates jerks that are mean to dogs.  And history is on the side of this video.  Remember that Budweiser commercial where the dog trains the Clydesdale, Rocky-style?  That scored 1^st on the ad meter in 2008.  Like I said, everyone loves dogs.  Plus, the cuteness and comedy in this ad start early which means which means viewers will “like it” for longer. Based on last year’s ad meter results, a score of 8.19 would get Underdog into the Top 3.

2. SNACK ATTACK SAMURAI.  PREDICTED SCORE: 7.46

SUMMARY:  This spot isn’t the most original submission I’ve seen but I bet it will make a lot of people smile.  It’s got kind a kooky vibe that I think viewers will find appealing, even if they don’t know why.  It LOOKS funny and FEELS funny, so even if it’s not actually super hilarious, I think it will score decently.

3. KIDS THESE DAYS.  PREDICTED SCORE: 7.15

SUMMARY:  Since a commercial’s final ad meter score is an average of how every second of the ad scored, Kids These Days probably won’t fair too well since it takes a while for the comedy to start.  But the main gag is a strong, likable one.  After Mr. Popped Collar gets shocked, I’m guessing viewers will keep their dials turned up as a retro-active sign of appreciation.

4.  THE SMACKOUT.  PREDICTED SCORE: 7.02

SUMMARY:  This spot was perfectly cast.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t perfectly shot.  The color is just plain messed up.  I like this story and think it was very well acted but it looks bad at times and I think that will be a turn off to viewers.  The use of cleavage was also a little gratuitous and I suspect a lot of women will punish this ad by keeping the score a little lower than is reasonable.  The slapstick is funny but not really Superbowl funny and I don’t think many viewers will be extremely impressed.

5. CASKET. PREDICTED SCORE: 6.85

SUMMARY: This is the best looking of all the CTSB finalists but all the other commercials airing during the superbowl will look as good as “Casket” or better. So production values won’t get them much ad meter juice. (Though I think the pretty church setting might result in an initial spike) This video has two things going against it; One, the protagonist’s plan is cruel and feels like a weak excuse for the guy to be in the casket and two, I think the “dead” man was miscast. Much of this commercial’s comedy comes from looks on the “dead” man’s face. I think the actor that was cast is simply annoying looking and I bet a lot of viewers would agree with me.

6. HOUSE RULES.  PREDICTED SCORE: 6.29

SUMMARY:  My gut reaction to this spot is that I like it.  But unfortunately, because of the way it’s set up, it’s doomed to perform poorly on the ad meter.  The graph tells the whole story.  A whopping 22 seconds go by before the real comedy starts.  That’s an eternity for a Superbowl commercial.  I think that not only will viewers not start scoring the commercial positively until the action starts, I think some may even start scoring it negatively if they start getting bored.

When you look at each ad charted out like this, you kind of have to wonder why Doritos picked some of these ads for the finals. I mean, I was able to whip up these graphs in like an hour. Millions and millions of dollars are at stake in the Crash the Superbowl contest so it seems hard to believe that Doritos wouldn’t have somebody analyze each finalist’s chances in the Ad meter.  Last year, a commercial needed to score at least a 7.49 just to make the top 10. So if Doritos did graph these out, then they already know that several of these videos just have zero chance of scoring “in the money.”  Hmmm, could it be that’s what they’re counting on?

]]> http://videocontestnews.com/2010/01/17/crash-the-superbowl-ad-meter-predictions/feed/ 4 http://videocontestnews.com/2010/01/13/so-how-does-the-usa-today-ad-meter-work/ http://videocontestnews.com/2010/01/13/so-how-does-the-usa-today-ad-meter-work/#comments Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:08:54 +0000 Beardy http://videocontestnews.com/?p=1215

I get the dial, but what's the pen for?

Yesterday I explained that the best way to ensure that Doritos will bring the Crash the Superbowl contest back next year is to help get the videos most likely to do well on the USA Today ad meter to air during the game. If ads that are doomed to flop make it to air, no CTSB ads will place “in the money” and Doritos might decide the contest isn’t worth the trouble and expense anymore. But if Doritos pulls off another high-profile ad-meter win like they did with “Free Doritos” last year, the company would probably want to stick with what was working for them. As long as just one CTSB entry makes the Top 3, that will be big news and result in lots of free publicity.

And this wouldn’t just be good news for people who are hoping for another shot at Doritos’ prize money. It would be great news for anyone who’s out there making money in online video contests. Video contests were few and far between just 2 years ago but the success of the Crash the Superbowl contest has inspired tons of other companies to hold their own user-generated content competitions. So the better Dortios does in during the superbowl, the more smaller video contests will spring up later this year.

Over the next week or so, we will be reviewing each of the 6 Finalists and analyzing their chances on the ad meter. (If you look to the right of your screen though, you will see that we already recommend that you vote for UNDERDOG since it’s the entry most likely to crack the Top 3.) But before we start, it’s important to quickly explain how the USA Today ad meter works….

Every year, USA Today gathers approximately 300 random Americans of all types to rate Superbowl ads. This is done in 2 locations in different states. These 300 or so people watch the Superbowl commercials with little dials in their hands. When the viewers see something the like, they turn the dial to the right. When they see something the don’t like, they turn it to the left. The more they like or don’t like something, the farther they turn the dial.

A number system is used to give each video a score. When a commercial starts, everyone’s dial is set to “neutral.”  Data from the dial is recorded for the entire duration of a commercial. The scores for each individual’s dial are averaged out to one number for each ad. Then, all those average scores from all those dials are averaged out to give one, official score. After the game, those scores are tabulated and the ads are ranked by USA Today. Here’s USA Today’s list of the Top 10 ranked ads from last year.

So as you’ll see, last year, the Crash the Superbowl ad made the top spot with a score of 8.46 and the 2nd and 3rd place ads also had scores over 8.0. So in our analysis, “8.0” is our magic number. If an ad isn’t likely to score higher than 8.0, it probably doesn’t have a shot at making the top 3.

Not pictured: you.

It’s been a week now since Doritos announced their 6 Finalists in the Crash the Superbowl contest and it seems that the unanimous opinion of the people of the Internetz is that Dorito’s “Top 6” selections are….not wonderful, which is surprising because last year, all 5 Crash the Superbowl finalists were exceedingly wonderful! They were all tremendous, hilarious and totally original. (Well, that one with the cat wasn’t that hilarious but I’m trying to make a point here.) I hate to say it but pretty much every finalist commercial from last year is better than every finalist commercial this year. With one exception…but I’ll talk about that in a second.

I entered the Crash the Superbowl contest this time around and of course I would have loved to get to the finals. But because of the extreme level of quality seen in last year’s finalists, I didn’t get my hopes up. This was the first year I entered the competition and in all honesty, I saw my CTSB experience this year as a test run for next year. This year I figured out what I could pull together and for how much and in what type of time frame. So I wasn’t heart broken when I didn’t get an e-mail from Doritos before the official notify date. I was actually really looking forward to the announcement of the finalists so that I could see some kick ass video contest entries.

But there isn’t a ton of kick-ass going on in the official Top 6. All of the finalists are…ok. Two of them though are so technically flawed that I am stunned that they could have made it this far. A third has an inexplicably cruel story that makes absolutely no sense. But it looked slick so I guess that was good enough to make it this year. Not making the finals is not a big deal. But seeing sub-par ads reach the Top 6 really stings.

A bizarre mix of WIN and FAIL

So we’re all upset. But what can we do about it? Right now, I think the best course of action for all us disgruntled Doritos fans should be to start looking towards next year. The smartest thing we can do now is try to ensure that Doritos will bring the Crash the Superbowl contest back this fall.

How do we do that? By helping Doritos score another USA Today Ad meter win. As our pal Rummy once said, You go to war with the army you have, not the one you wish you had. That means instead of moaning about what videos SHOULD have made it to the finals, contestants should focus on ensuring that the best videos of the Top 6 make it to the Superbowl. Breaking into the Top 3 on the Ad Meter is the entire point of this year’s contest,. So if the selected commercials flop and don’t accomplish that goal, Doritos might decide to try something different in 2011.

So, for the next week or so, we will be reviewing all 6 of this year’s Crash the Superbowl finalists. Not only will we be critiquing these entries, but we will be analyzing their theoretical chances on the USA Today Ad Meter poll. We’ll be explaining which videos would have a fighting chance and which would be doomed to be remembered as the lamest spots of the game.

Spoiler alert! We have already been calculatin’ the odds of each video and have determined the entry that has the best chance of scoring a Top 3 spot is UNDERDOG. Not only does it have the best chances, it was actually my personal favorite video before the finalists were even announced! So in the case of Underdog, I was very happy to see it make the finals. We’ll have more on UNDERDOG and why we think it has what it takes to score another big win for Doritos, later. But since there are only 20 DAYS left to cast your votes, I wanted to declare Underdog as our official pick right now. If you look at the upper right hand corner of our sidebar, you’ll see a little daily reminder to vote. Click that banner and you’ll go right to Underdog’s page on the Crash the Superbowl site.  And if you head to Doritoscontest.com, you can learn more about the entry and the guys who made it.

If you want another chance at Crashing the Superbowl, you first have to help make sure the contest comes back. So do like Beardy and vote everyday for the unstoppable juggernaut that is UNDERDOG!