The Crash the Super Bowl contest wound up receiving 1460 Pepsi Max commercials this year and man, I watched every single one of them.  Ok…well, not really.  I didn’t watch EVERY one of them.  If you’ve scrolled through the CTSB contest site you’ll have noticed that there are tons and tons of duplicate entries.  So many people uploaded multiple copies of the same video that I’d estimate that the actual number of unique entries is probably about 800.  But full disclosure, I didn’t watch all 800 of those entries all the way through.  I probably stopped watching about 50% of those 800 videos after 15 seconds.  However, I do feel like I gave every video a fair shot.  The reality of this contest is that filmmakers are supposed to be making commercials that are good enough to air on tv.  So if I can’t hear the dialogue or see the action then it just has no realistic shot.  No matter how awesomely hilarious an entry might be, production quality matters.  But I’m no big-budget loving snob.  In fact, I very much prefer ads that are less polished and have a more genuine, user-generated feel to them.  The slickest ads actually turn me off because it feels like producers with deep pockets are just trying to spend their way into the finals.  And that kind of defeats the “little guys get a shot at the big time” spirit of the competition.

So let’s assume that I watched about 400 entries from start to finish.  As I was working my way through the contest gallery I would bookmark any submission that I thought was decent.  What does “decent” mean?  Well a “decent” entry doesn’t have any major technical problems, it doesn’t violate the rules and it has an ok story.  So the “decent” entries didn’t even have to be funny. They just had to be ok.  My thinking was that if there was any chance that some one, some where might like an ad, I’d bookmark it.  That got me down to about 200 entries.

From there, I applied a kind of a bizarre test to the remaining ads.  Let’s call it the “How the F#%& did THAT get on the Super Bowl!?” test.  As I watched the 200 “decent” ads I tried to image how average folks would react to seeing this commercial for the first time in the middle of the big game.  If I felt like more than 50% of viewers would think a video was too “lame” or “stupid” or “boring” to air during the Super Bowl it got cut from my list.  I know that might sound of harsh but you gotta remember that the home audience will have about 2 seconds to decide whether or not they liked a commercial before the next one starts.  So trying to predict viewers’ gut reactions is a pretty fair test, I think.

So that test got me down to about 60 videos.  Yep, 60.  In my opinion, out of the 1460 videos submitted, only 60 are good enough to have a real shot at actually making the finals. (that’s 4% by the way)   Since I wound up with 60 possible contenders I decided to weed out half of them and present a Top 30 list.  The list consists of what I think are the 25 strongest CTSB contenders plus 5 contenders that have issues that I suspect might keep them out of the finals.  So how did I get down to the final 30?  Well for each video I considered the following questions:

1. Based on how the Ad Meter works, does this spot have a chance at scoring well?
2. If people saw this ad on tv during the Super Bowl, would they like it enough to want to see it again later online?
3. Does this video fit the style of videos that the judges at Fritolay seem to like? (based on past finalist selections)
4. Is this the kind of ad that the big wigs at Pepsi, Doritos and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners said they’d be looking for in this year’s CTSB Launch video?  (Goodby/Silverstein is an ad firm that helps fritolay judge the contest.)
5. Is it funny?

And those questions got me to my list of 30. Pepsi won’t announce their 5 finalist choices until January 3^rd but if I may be so bold, I’m gonna predict that all 5 of those finalist videos can be seen right now in this post.

But before I present the list, a major caveat!!  At the last minute this year I wound up being part of a team that shot a Pepsi Max ad.  I honestly didn’t have much faith that the video was going to work but I am absolutely amazed at how good the final version turned out to be.  It’s so good that I absolutely had to include it in this post.  Obviously I’m biased since I had a hand in making the thing but I give you folks my word that even if I had nothing to do with this ad, it would have made my list.  Is this really a fair thing to me to do?  I dunno, but it’s my blog so deal with it ya’ nerds!  Ahem…ok, enough jibber jabber.  Here’s our list of the Top 30 Pepsi Max Crash the Super Bowl contenders.  The entries are listed in no particular order.  Oh wait, they are.  They’re in alphabetical order.  Guess that counts as particular.  Click on the thumbnails to see the actual videos.

TOP 25 CONTENDERS IN THE PEPSI MAX CRASH THE SUPER BOWL CONTEST:

ASSEMBLY REQUIRED:

CAR SEAT:

DOG GONE:

DON’T WASTE IT:

GO LONG:

HICCUPS:

JOIN HANDS FOR PEACE:

LAUNCH PAD:

LOVE HURTS:

MAGIC MAX:

METEOR DOG/METEOR HERO:

NO COUNTRY CLUB FOR OLD MEN:

OVER THE POP:

PEPSI MAX IS MAGNUS:

PEPSI MAX TASTE TEST:

PEPSI WEDDING:

THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE:

THE CHOICE:

THE LEGEND OF MOOSEY JOE:

THE WRESTLER:

THIRD WISH:

TORPEDO COOLER:

THROWING PEPSI:

TURF WAR:

WHO WANTS ONE?:

So my goal was to list the 25 ads that I feel have the best shot at going all the way.  But I wanted to point out 5 more videos that Pepsi will almost certainly give serious consideration to.  These final 5 videos however, as good as they are, have issues; issues I believe will keep them out of the finals.  These entries are so noteworthy and so professional-looking though that if I left them off the list people would think I was a moron.  For each I’ll explain the extenuating circumstances that I suspect will keep these spots from making the final 5.  Now when you see this list you might be inclined to think that I’m just picking on the most expensive and slickest entries.  But keep in mind that I cut dozens of videos from my list of contenders for all kinds of crazy reasons.  The only reason I am including these entries in this list is because they are so GOOD they can’t be ignored and I feel like I should explain why they didn’t make the cut.

WHISTLE TO THE MAX.  This is one of the most amazing video contest entries I have ever seen.  As a piece of filmmaking it is just fantastic.  I can’t even imagine how the director pulled it off.  Did he just happen to be in Africa with enough production gear to shoot a small film?  How did they get all those kids?  The whole thing is amazing.  But you can’t ignore the fact that it features original music and the CTSB rules make a big deal about that.  Contestants were not allowed to create new music.  They could only use the tracks provided by the sponsors.  You could argue that whistling and tapping don’t constitute a “song” but the video’s description actually says “in a village in Eastern Africa, the local kids make music using Pepsi bottles”  And on top of that, the melody of the bottle song actually mimics the Pepsi theme song.

TOOL FIGHT. Not counting this year, the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest has been held 3 other times.  The first year, a team of filmmakers known as 5 Points Productions won the contest.  The second year, a pair of brothers named Joe and Dave Herbert won and received a million dollar bonus.  The third year, the 5 Points production team “won” the contest (and $600K) again.  So what does all that have to do with this entry?  Well it was created by the 2009 champs the Herbert Brothers.  Tool Fight is a great entry and even looks like a Super Bowl commercial.  But Pepsi is really, really, REALLY going to have to love it in order for them to be able to pick it.  If the same people keep winning the contest every year are filmmakers going to want to keep entering?   And to make matters even more sticky, the Herbert Brothers are essentially spokesmen for the Crash the Super Bowl contest.  I don’t think they’re currently getting paid for their efforts but an entire section of the CTSB website is filled with “How to” videos featuring advice and tips from the Herberts.  How would it look if the guys hired by Fritolay to teach contestants how to win this contest won this contest?  The brothers are great guys and readers of the site and they’ve even been sharing their insiders’ perspective in the comment section of some of our recent posts.  So I do feel like kind of a jerk for bringing all this up.  But the truth of the matter is that history and appearances will have an impact of this video’s chances.

OFFICE BREAK. If I were to see this commercial on TV I’d never suspect it was created as an entry for a user-generated video contest.  It’s very slick, the actors are funny and the final gag is pretty ingenious.  But something is not right here.  This ad features a number of professional actors including three especially awesome writers/actors who, over the years have played countless characters on Conan O’Brian’s various talk shows.  (they’re the big lady, the red headed instigator and the guy in the wrestling shorts)  So when I first saw Office Break I assumed that it was made by someone who works on the staff of the Conan O’Brian’s show.  Or maybe even the ENTIRE Conan staff and crew.  But it wasn’t.  Turns out this spot was created by a filmmaker named Kevin Wilson.  Last year, his CTSB entry “Casket” made it to the Doritos finals and aired during the Super Bowl.  Since the creators of this spot don’t have anything to do with Conan (the show) I think it was inappropriate to cast so many recognizable members of Conan’s staff.  It gives the false impression that Conan or his team wrote and filmed this spot. If this ad airs during the super bowl, tens of millions of people will jump to the same conclusions that I did…and that includes any die-hard Conan fans that might happen to be in USA Today’s Ad Meter focus group.  Who knows, maybe Conan himself okayed this but regardless, it comes across as a calculated attempt to imply something about the people who wrote this ad that isn’t true.

MAXIMUM BORGNINE. Ok so first off, this ad looks like a million bucks.  Plus holy F%&$!  That’s Ernest Borgine!  And that guy from Baseketball and Orgazmo!  How in world did they get those guys to be in a Crash the Super Bowl entry!?  Color me hella impressed.  However….if Pepsi selects this ad for the finals they will basically be throwing the entire Crash The Super Bowl concept out the window.  Yes, I’m serious.  If this entry had an anonymous old man in it every one would just dismiss it as yet another “old person gone wild” type of video.  Other than the top-notch production values the only thing that makes this spot special is that the old guy running around screaming is a celebrity.   And if Pepsi cared about having celebrities in their ads they wouldn’t be seeking out “User Generated content.”   If this ad gets to the finals, Pepsi and Doritos will essentially be telling the thousands of low budget filmmakers who enter the contest every year “This is what it takes to win; a celebrity.”   And there’s no way the Borgnine spot would NOT make it to the Super Bowl.  After all, it’d be the only Crash the Super Bowl entry that the media would care about.  But you know what viewers will think when the spot airs?  They’ll think “what are they doing, trying to do their own version of the Betty White Snickers ad?”

ALIEN. Ok, enough of my jealous bitching.  Let’s end on a happy note.  This spot is called Alien and it is my personal favorite out of all 1460 Pepsi Max submissions.   I won’t spoil the surprise but the first joke in this video cracks me up every time I see it.  In fact, this is one of the only Pepsi Max entries that actually made me laugh out loud.  I also think it’s a perfect example of true “User-Generated” content.  You get the feeling that these two dudes were sitting around one day drinking Pepsi Max when they came up with this idea.  Then they grabbed a camera and a cucumber and went outside to film the thing.  It goes to show that you can literally spend zero dollars on your ad but if the script is  funny you’ll get noticed.  If you’ve watched Alien you’re probably going to guess that I’m going to say the video quality isn’t good enough for tv.  Pshhht.  Forget video quality.  A good colorist could make this ad tv-ready in a single session.  No the problem here is the news broadcast that the bearded guy is listening to at the start of the ad.  That’s part of Orson Well’s infamous 1938 War of the World’s Broadcast!  So…that’ll probably will hinder their chances a bit.

Ok folks, that’s our list.  Like I said I did work on one of the above videos so take everything I’ve said here with a grain of salt.  Now before anyone asks, no I will not be doing a list like this for the Doritos entries.  If I tried to watch any more CTSB entries my brain would melt.  And for the record, if your video didn’t make our Top 30 list it does NOT mean it wasn’t any  good.  It just means that it didn’t fit my cockamamie theories about what the Crash the Super Bowl judges will be looking for.  If you want to yell at me or if you want to post your own list of favorite entries, please do so in the comments.