Super Bowl XLIV just ended and that means that the 2010 installment of Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl contest is finally over too. All three winning commercials aired in the first quarter but SURPRISE!…Doritos snuck one more Crash the Superbowl finalist in during the 4th quarter. And holy crap, the USA Today Ad Meter results have just come in and SURPRISE again! One of the Crash the Superbowl ads cracked the top 3! I’ll post all the numbers below but first here are the official winners in the order they ran. From what I’ve read, the order that the commercials aired reflect which entries got the most, second most and third most votes last month.
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.
Yesterday I explained that on Wednesday night, CBS seemed to reveal 2 of the 3 winners of the Crash the Superbowl contest in their special “The Superbowl’s Greatest commercials.” Near the end of the show they featured a montage of new commercials explaining it was a “sneak peek” of ads that were going to air during the big game on Sunday. Two of the commercials in the montage were Crash the Superbowl finalists: Snack Attack Samurai and Kids These Days.
One of the most interesting things about the Doritos contest is that no one, not even the finalists are supposed to know who won until the three winning ads appear on TV during the Superbowl. However, the 6 videos that made it to the finals were also supposed to be kept secret but USA Today revealed one finalist (“Casket”) early in a story about Superbowl ad sales. So it seems that Doritos may be trying to milk the CTSB contest for all its worth by seizing every media opportunity that is presented to them, even if they have to share a few secrets to ensure coverage.
Possible case in point, I saw this really weird article from of all places, the Sacramento Bee. The piece is about a local actor and in the article they repeatedly assert that Casket WILL be airing on Superbowl Sunday. They even go so far as to say when “Casket” will air. Here’s some of the piece:
“Rocklin High School grad and actor Nick Armstrong has a lot riding on Sunday’s Super Bowl.
The Sacramento native will appear in a Doritos commercial that’s scheduled to air sometime before the halftime show. It’s one of three Doritos commercials competing in the chip company’s “Crash the Super Bowl” contest, and the most popular will win $1 million.
Four thousand commercials were submitted to Doritos, and three of them – including “Casket,” which features Armstrong – will be broadcast Sunday. USA Today’s Super Bowl Ad Meter – a survey of television ads conducted as a live poll during the telecast – will determine the most popular.
Besides the $1 million for first place, Doritos will pay the second-place finisher $600,000 and the third-place finisher $400,000.”
Notice what was missing from that article? The “ifs,” and “maybes.” The paper wrote about “Casket” like it was a done deal. So does the Sacramento Bee know something we don’t? Ehhh, maybe not. This article does have one red flag in it; the author seems to imply that the 3 Doritos commercials that air will receive a cash prize even if they don’t make the Top 3 on the USA Today ad meter. It seems like they got their facts mixed up. So maybe they got the rest of the facts mixed up too? It’s a tough call, the author really makes it sounds like he’s privy to some inside information.
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.
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 1st 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?
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.
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!
First of all, if you’re new to the site, welcome! We’ve been getting hundreds of new readers a day thanks to the Crash the Superbowl contest. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be covering the contest closely but we’ll also be doing our regular thing which is covering video contests of all sizes. If this year’s Crash the Superbowl contest was your first video contest experience I recommend that it not be your last. You may not have made it to the finals, but there are plenty of other big prizes out there waiting to be won. I personally have never won a big money prize but in the last two years I’ve won a total of $30,000 in smaller contests. And there are plenty of other folks on the web who have won a who lot more than that. So I hope you all enjoy both our Dortios and non-Doritos related posts and share your own opinions in the comments sections. If you’d like to be know whenever we put up a new post, just click the yellow RSS button to the right to subscribe to the blog.
Doritos announced their “Top 6” on Monday night and now that I’ve had a some time to let the finalists sink in, I’ve warmed up to them. All of them are at least decent. Unlike a lot of unhappy folks, I wouldn’t classify any of them as “sucking.” Are all of them good enough for the superbowl? Maybe not. We’re there better entries that got overlooked? Yes. I think the Doritos judges were just maybe 2 or 3 choices away from having a really awesome Top 6.
But not everyone thinks so. In fact, based on the e-mails and comments I’ve been getting and from what I’ve read on the Crash the Superbowl forum, a lot of you really, really, REALLY hate the choices Doritos made. I’ve read lots of theories. Including:
1. The judges intentionally picked bad finalists to ensure the company would not have to pay out 5 million bucks.
2. One finalist entry was picked solely for politically correct reasons.
3. The USAtoday article that revealed “Casket” as a finalist gave them an unfair advantage
4. The contest was “rigged” in some way for some reason
5. Doritos picked 2 videos from the makers of the commercial that won the first CTSB competition in 2007 because they know them and like them.
One disgruntled contestant went so far as to create a facebook group in protest of the judges decisions:
Personally, I won’t be joining that particular group. I think that 3 of Doritos choices are funny and good enough for the game. And three good ones are all you need. I even think one of them has a shot at the top spot on the USAtoday ad meter. I’ll be listing my three personal choices as well as my three predictions in the next few days. In the meantime, why don’t you guys let us know what you think in the comments section? Did the judges blow it or did they nail it? What ads do you think were robbed of a finalist spot? Which commercials do you think suck and why? Which one will you be voting for?
And I am looking for an answer for a specific question. I didn’t enter or even pay attention really to the CTSB contest last year. After the last year’s Top 5 were announced, what was the reaction? Did people instantly love “Snowglobe?’ Were people claiming the contest was rigged or that the judges picked 6 awful entries? If you followed the contest last year and can fill me in on what the consensus was, lemme know in a comment.
Well it’s finally D (for Doritos) day. Last night, at midnight central time, Doritos revealed the Top 6 finalists for their 2010 installment of the Crash the Superbowl commercial contest. The prize for making it to this round is $25,000 and a trip to the big game for each filmmaker.
Voting is now open and the public will decide which three of these submissions make it to the Superbowl. The finalists are:
“Underdog” AKA “Animal Cruelty” by jwsvoboda. Video #5584.
“The Smackout” by bhayword. Video #5511
“Casket” AKA “The Casket” by ms. Video #4374
“Snack Attack Samurai” by CBer. Video #1786
“House Rules” by Dejesus_77. Video #3713
“Kids These Days” by Blackmariastudios. Video #5427
I had figured that when the finalists were announced I would post the results and share my impressions but….I have no idea what to say here. There are two spots that I prefer but the rest are just…baffling. I know that I recommended that Doritos consider some entries for the top 6 that were rough around the edges but I never thought they’d choose entries that had actual technical flaws.
I am also feeling pretty burned about “The Casket” making the finals. As I’ve mentioned, my entry for the Crash the Superbowl contest, “Rest in Chips” was also about a guy who faked his death and in accordance with his fake last wish was buried in a casket full of Doritos that gets knocked over. As I explained in yesterday’s post and this post from November 19th, I suspect that I might be the victim of plagiarism. If you watch both entries and ignore the superficial aesthetic elements (camera quality, location, actors, costumes) and compare the concept and story elements (fake funeral, a final wish, a casket of doritos, knocked over casket etc) it’s hard to deny that both videos MAY have both based on my original concept (which anyone could have seen in a storyboard I posted to youtube in October.) But even if I wasn’t plagiarized, my video was posted first. I never expected to make it to the finals but a major part of each entry’s score was “Originality.” And I believe that I read that if two similar ideas were posted, the originality score of the video that was uploaded second would take a hit. I even e-mailed Doritos and told them about my plagiarism concerns and so I can’t believe that “The Casket” still made it. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that they almost are hoping for controversy.
Since I’m sort of at a loss for words right now, how about I turn the discussion over to you? What do you guys think of the finalists? Let us know in the comment section…..
UPDATE: SWEET JUMPING JESUS!!! It turns out that TWO of the entries in the top 6 were created by the same people! They are posted under different names but both “Kids these Days” and “Underdog” are products of a company called 5 Point Productions. That blows my mind!! People are going to flip the F#$% out when they hear about this. I think “Underdog” is great but the other entry is just ok. Doritos couldn’t spread the wealth around a little? In no way do I blame the 5 Point Productions people for this. Good for them for kicking so much ass. They couldn’t find ONE more decent spot among the 4067 that were posted!?
UPDATE: We blew it! Looks like Beardy got taken by some bad “insider” info. Two of our three “finalist” scoops turned out to be wrong! We are really sorry about that folks. We have removed the incorrect info from this site.
We were correct about one finalist though. “The Casket” was the only of the 6 finalist videos to leak before the official announcement at 12AM Central time today. So the portions of this post that pertain to “The Casket” will remain up.
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Tonight at 11PM Eastern time, voting begins in the 2010 installment of Doritos’ Crash the Superbowl video contest. From the looks of the CTSB website, the 6 finalists won’t be revealed until voting begins. So you’ll have to wait until then to see which entries made the cut. Or you could just continue reading and see three of those six videos right now.
Like I said, the Crash the Superbowl finalists won’t officially be announced until later tonight. But I can say with 95% certainty that these three ads have made the top six. WARNING: Two of these three videos are on this list because they are educated guesses based on very, very strong information. If you actually made any of these videos and you have not heard from Doritos, that means you didn’t make the finals! In that unlikely scenario, I apologize for getting your hopes up. Again, these 3 are 95% for sure.
INCORRECT VIDEO #1 REMOVED
INCORRECT VIDEO #2 REMOVED
“The Casket” by ms. Video #3006
“The Casket” is the only entry I am certain made the final cut because it was mentioned in an article about superbowl commercial sales on usatoday.com today. This….is not good. As some of you frequent readers may know, I was worried “The Casket” might get to the finals because I suspect that the makers of that entry may have plagiarized my own work. Here is MY casket-full-of-doritos entry, video #1983, “Rest in Chips.”
This is my video and NOT a finalist:
Both videos feature a dead man’s last wish to be buried in a casket full of Doritos, a funeral for that guy that turns out to be fake, a big, framed photo of the “dead” guy enjoying a bag of Doritos next to the casket, shots of that guy in his casket buried up to his face in chips and a climax in which the “dead” guy gets his comeuppance when the casket of chips is knocked over. So many of the same key elements appear in both spots that it’s hard to chalk the whole thing up to coincidence.
A month before I shot “Rest in Chips,” I created a (crude) animated storyboard so that I could plan out the timing of the shoot. I uploaded the storyboard to youtube the first week of October so that my actors and crew could get a better idea of what I had in mind. I named it something like “Doritos storyboard.” That means any potential Doritos contestants could have seen it while searching youtube to see last year’s winners. In fact, it would have been one of the top results since it was a recent upload. After maybe a week I realized this and pulled the video. Then I re-uploaded it with a generic name so it would not appear in Doritos-related searches. Here it is. If you watch it on youtube you’ll see that its upload date is October 12th. Play my youtube storyboard and “The Casket” at the same time and they almost seem to line up shot for shot. And for the record, I did some googling and “The Casket” was shot on November 1st. By November 1st I already had rough cuts of my entry posted to my youtube page.
I really never expected to make it to the finals and I’m not upset because I didn’t win. But I am upset that someone who may have plagiarized my work is going to be rewarded for their actions. Because “The Casket” was so slickly produced, I knew it would be a contender for the final six. So several weeks ago I e-mailed Doritos, sent them my links and told them about my suspicions. They told me they would send the information to their legal team. But I never heard from anyone from Doritos again.
Originally, I posted (at length) about my plagiarism worries on November 19th. Since then, my suspicions have only increased. The usatoday.com article mentions the name of the producer of “The Casket” and explains that he works at the church that appears in that video. They even mention the church by name. Based on this new info, I dug through my site logs and it seems very, very likely that the producer of “The Casket” found my post about his entry last week and read it over and over.
So think about that for a second. Imagine you just found out that you made the final 6 in the CTSB contest. Then imagine that you google “Doritos casket” (according to my weblogs, that’s how the person found my post) and see that the number one search result for that phrase was a blog post by another filmmaker suggesting that your entry might have been a rip-off of his idea. What would you do? I know what I’d do. If I didn’t steal the idea, I’d immediately e-mail the blogger or leave a comment and explain my side of the story. But no message ever came.
And now that I know that the producer of “The Casket” works at the church featured in their entry, I think I have a pretty good idea what happened. The producer or the director of the entry went to youtube after the Crash the Superbowl contest was announced and searched for “doritos” so they could see what the 2009 finalist videos looked like. “The Casket” was shot with a very expensive camera called a “RED Camera.” Any filmmaker who watches last year’s finalists would recognize that all but one of them were shot with RED cameras. So the producers of “The Casket” clearly did their homework. And I suspect that while they were doing their homework, they saw my storyboard. The idea in the storyboard seems kind of outrageous and un-film-able….unless you happen to have free and total access to an amazingly beautiful church. My theory is that they saw my storyboard and figured no one would be crazy enough to get a casket and dig a giant hole in the ground. I think they assumed the idea would never be shot so they took it and adapted the idea to fit the location they had at their disposal.
For the record, I have no concrete proof of any unethical behavior and if my theories are proven to be incorrect I will wipe all mention of them from this site and apologize to everyone involved. But the circumstantial evidence is pretty strong I think. I have a reputation of my own to think about and I’d never share these ideas in public if my gut didn’t tell me I was on to something.
I really have no idea what I’m going to do about all this but to quote The Dude; “This aggression will not stand, man.” If anybody has any suggestions about how I should proceed I’d love to hear ‘em.
On Wednesday we announced the 6 videos that we HOPE Doritos will consider for the finals of the Crash the Superbowl competition. (Scroll down two posts to see them) They’re all great entries but to be honest, they are all kind of long shots. But those were our recommendations. Today we’re going to make our official CTSB predictions! Rather than try and guess all 6 finalists I thought I’d just go with three submissions that I think are basically locks for the finals and in one case, the superbowl and one of the top 3 spots on the ad meter. Here we go:
3. Doritos Please by “Senor Queso.” Video #1614
This video is just mind-blowing. I can’t even imagine how much time, money and effort went into create what might be the most amazing video contest entry EVER.
And I hope it doesn’t win.
I’d be amazed if this spot didn’t make it to the final six but I think it would be a bad idea for Doritos to pick it. Why? Oh come on….you know why.
If “Doritos Please” aired during the superbowl, at least 50% of the people who saw it would immediately think the same thing; “Hey, did Doritos just rip of the Dos Equis Most Interesting Man in the world commercials?” Obviously, those two spots are very, very different. But that is the reaction I had when I first saw it, it’s the reaction friends had when I sent it to them and it’s the reaction many commentors have been having over on the contest site.
It’s important to note that “Doritos Please” was created by the same team that created one of last year’s finalist videos, Too Delicious. They didn’t make it to the superbowl and I’m guessing they vowed that 2010 would be their year. It’s an amazing entry and a valiant effort but Dos Equis did the cool, world-traveling latin guy thing first. I predict it will make it to the finals but if I were a Doritos judge, I’d pass on this one in favor of something more original. But how can they?? Wouldn’t they feel bad considering how much work and money went into this entry!? And it’s from someone the CTSB team probably already knows well so it’d be tough to say “sorry guys, thanks for working so hard but once again, you’re not going to make it to the superbowl.” So I think that sentimentality will ensure this spot will make it to the top 6 but if I were Doritos, I’d leave it out. It just makes us “average joes” look like we can’t come up with our own original ideas.
2. Kick Hunger by “Silveroaks.” Video #1669
This is one of my favorite entries but it too just happens to be a little too similar to a series of commercials that are already on the air……
But unlike “Doritos Please” I think that this Hunger commercial is different enough from the Weight Watchers commercials to earn a pass. People will make the connection but at least there’s a nut shot and that will probably win folks over. I can see this one making the top 6 and even the superbowl.
1. Animal Cruelty by “jwsvboda.” Video #5503
If it were up to me, this spot right here would get the first spot in the top 6. It’s funny, new, unique, subversive and it even manages to look and sound like a professional ad. But it’s just rough around the edges enough so that viewers will appreciate and understand that it’s not a multi-million dollar, Madison avenue created commercial. It’s slick but not too slick and it’s got a dog who gets revenge against a jerk who was trying to abuse an animal. Who wouldn’t rate a commercial like this really well?
So here’s Beardy’s big prediction; Animal Cruelty will make the top 6, it will make it to the Superbowl and it will place in the Top 3 of the USA Today Ad meter poll. It has just what it takes to rank well during polling. It’s funny early and gets funnier as it goes on. As soon as viewers see that shot of that dog lifting up his collar, every dial in the ad meter poll will go all the way to “This is great” and it will stay there for the rest of the spot.
So there you go folks. If you have seen or made a spot that you think I’ve overlooked, leave a link in the comments of this post. If I see one that really blows me away, I will add it to our list.
Note: Scroll down if you want to just skip my blabbering and see which 6 entries we recommend Doritos consider for the finals.
Since the passing of the November 9th deadline I’ve tried to watch as many of the entries for this year’s Crash the Superbowl contest as I could. But alas, Beardy is only human and I probably managed to look at only 2,800 or so of the 4,069 submitted videos. That means chances are good that I completely missed some of the most awesome submissions. So, though I’ve said that I planned to announce this website’s predictions for which entries will make it to the final 6, I don’t think that’s really a fair thing to do.
Instead, I’m going to completely ignore some of the highest quality spots that I saw and post 6 entries that I really enjoyed but that I suspect Doritos may overlook. So let’s call this list VideoContestNews.com’s official recommended CTSB entries! Before I get into my humble video recommendations, I’d like to first make one general recommendation to the judges of the Crash the Superbowl contest: Think Small.
While watching all those entries, I saw a lot of very, very well made and expensive spots but with two or three exceptions, none of the high-budget/high concept submissions had much heart. On the other hand, I did see a number of really cool, really creative commercials that seem to have been shot by semi-pros and amateurs using consumer and “prosumer” grade video cameras. But a little googling will tell you that 4 of the 5 finalists last year shot their entries with RED One cameras. Don’t know what that is? It’s a very, very high-end camera that starts at about $17,000. So it’s clear that last year Doritos wanted the slickest commercials that filmmakers outside of the ad industry could make. (If you can get your hands on anything nicer that a RED camera you’re probably already a well paid pro.)
And all of last year’s finalists were stellar. They were slick enough to look like actual TV commercials but they were also funny, subversive and surprising. But after watching almost 3,000 of this year’s entries I just don’t see many that had top notch production values and were also FUNNY and ORIGINAL. Basically this year’s slickest entries just come off as hollow versions of “real” commercials.
So what happened? Two things I think; One, Doritos put up millions of dollars in prize money and then marketed the contest like crazy. So tons of people who never picked up a camera before jumped on the bandwagon. And two, all of last year’s finalists were so F***ing amazing that many pro and semi-pro filmmakers assumed the bar would be way to high and didn’t bother to enter. People like that know the look of the RED camera and they did the math in their head and realized that to be a serious competitor, you’d need to have access to a RED camera (or at least a high end HD camera). So right off the bat you’re already looking at a budget of $1,000 to rent a RED camera for a day. And not just any shmuck can run those. So unless you’ve used one before, throw in another $500 for a D.P. who knows what he’s doing. So that’s $1,500 minimum. And I’ll tell you, it takes a very, very special person to be willing to gamble that much money on a production when they see that 3,000 entries have already been uploaded.
So basically this means that there are two kinds of good videos among this year’s batch of entries. There are cool, funny, inventive videos that were made by non-pros or semi-pros who used consumer and prosumer level gear, and there are ok, but not super funny, big-budget entries that feature pretty graphics, lots of fancy but unnecessary dolly shots and in some cases, established characters actors, B-list celebrities and in one case, a semi-well known indie band.
My recommendation to the CTSB judges is to forget the slick, not-so-funny entries and give a few of the littler guys a shot. The first year that Doritos ran the Crash the Superbowl competition (2006), the winning commercial had a budget of only $12! That’s probably why so many pros jumped in in 2008. (Doritos did something else for the superbowl the year in between) They knew that if they could make a funny spot that also looked like a “real” commercial, they could crush the competition. Well this year I don’t think the pros delivered and so Doritos should do something bold; forget about only picking finalists that look like “real” commercials. Obviously they can’t air a spot with crappy lighting and muffled sound during the superbowl, but they can and should give serious consideration to the “prosumer” level filmmakers that submitted. If they don’t, I don’t think CTSB spots will go on to take all three top spots in the USA Today ad meter.
And making the “Top 3” of the Ad meter is the entire point of this contest. That right there is exactly why Doritos should go with videos that are attention-getting and big on laughs, rather than videos that are super-slick but only mildly amusing. And while the point of the contest is to make the top 3, the MESSAGE of the contest is that if given the chance, creative, regular Joes can beat the Madison Avenue crowd at their own game. Even many of the people in the Ad Meter poll will understand that’s what this contest is about and I suspect they will give extra points to the CTSB finalists IF those finalist videos actually look different that all the other spots that air during the game.
What I’m saying is that Doritos should pick at least a few finalists that are a little ROUGH AROUND THE EDGES. Yes, they might be seen by 100 Million people and yes they will stick out like a sore thumb. And that’s why it’d be great! If you’re watching the game and all of the sudden, some crazy thing that some dude shot in his back yard comes on the TV, you’re going to sit up and take notice. And if that “imperfect” ad makes you laugh, then it has been a success, even if only cost 12 bucks to make. If Doritos wanted to shoot a commercial featuring Flavor Flav they could seal that deal during a single lunch meeting. If they wanted to cast the secretary from Ferris Bueller in a commercial they could make that happen in less than 4 phone calls. And if they wanted their own version of the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” commercials they could have a team crank that out in a week. So why should Doritos pick spots that an ad firm on Madison Avenue could slap together without breaking a sweat? If you’re going to create a new and completely different way to get your superbowl commercials, shouldn’t the commercials you get actually seem completely different than everything else that’s going to air during the game?
Anyway, that’s my 2 cents. Finally, here are the 6 entries that I really hope Doritos considers for their 2010 Crash the Superbowl finalists. These are in order with #1 being my favorite:
#6. Don’t Be that Guy by “Moedirty.” Video #2530
This spot really only has one thing going for it; the super-serious guy at the end. But you know what? That guy is PERFECT. If this aired during the Superbowl the next day people in offices all across the country would be saying the hot new catchphrase “You have to leave.”
#5. Want More? by “Shonky.” Video #2081
If this commercial was shot by a major ad company you wouldn’t think about it twice. But knowing that it was just a couple of crazy dudes who made this adds a sweet level of insanity to it.
#4. So Worth It by “tgo0116.” Video #307
This is a Superbowl-style comedy of errors commercial shot for (probably) nothing. But that low-budget, indie look gives it the heart that so many of the slicker entries are lacking. This guy wanted to win so bad he cut a hole in his mother f***ing roof. Hell yeah.
#3. Doritos Make Everything Better by “Keithhopkin.” Video #951
It looks like it was shot for a high school film class but this will keep viewers smiling all the way through. The shot of the dog wincing when the Doritos fall on him might hurt this video’s chances but the dog probably didn’t mind, right?
#2. Battlestations! by “Laserbunny.” Video #4097
This one has actually got some nice effects but it still has a nice indie vibe to it. Despite the CGI they use, the “fractal Dorito” was apparently real. I think this one can make the official Top 6.
#1. Wrong Commercial by “knewacheck.” Video #3742
This commercial is just flat out stupid…and I love it. It’s so weird and goofy and you can tell that it was made for fun. Maybe the “Got Milk” bit at the end will cause a copyright problem big enough to keep it out of the finals but I hope not. The spot’s absurd but it’s absurd in a very smart way. Right off the bat, the characters let the viewer know that what they are seeing is a commercial submitted for a contest. That gives the spot license to be imperfect and look like it was made by three random knuckleheads. But I’m over thinking it. It’s funny and it works, that’s all that should matter.
Now as I said, I also shot an entry for this year’s competition but of course it’d be pretty shady of me to include it in my top 6. So instead I’ll just place a link right here if you want to check it out:
Despite all my talk about low-budget spots, I shot my entry on HD and it cost about $1,600. We even through a crane shot in there! Do as Beardy says folks, not as Beardy does. We used a prosumer HD camera though so I consider it to be a “medium-sized” production. Plus it is sorta rough around the edges I think.
So what do you think folks? Are we right or are we crazy? Did we overlook any potential winners? Let us know in the comment box. And because I can’t help myself, check back on Friday to see which two, more slickly-produced videos we predict will make it to the finals and the Superbowl.
Beardy is a dreamer of big dreams. And Beardy’s latest big dream was to watch all 4047 entries in this year’s crash the superbowl contest and list his predictions for which commercials would make it to the finals. But alas, this was a pipe dream. For if one were to actually sit down and watch every, single entry that was submitted to the Doritos contest this year they’d be stuck in front of a computer for almost three full days. Beardy still wants to compile a list of predictions, but he could use some help.
So, have you seen a spot that you thought was especially awesome? Did you see one that you know is destined to make it to the finals? Or did you create an amazing commercial that you think should be recognized? Or did you make a spot was just OK but you feel like doing some shameless self promotion? If you answered in the affirmative to any of these questions, let us know. Send us a link to your favorite CTSB entries at videocontestnews@gmail.com or just leave it in a comment. In the next few days, I’ll edit this post and insert links to some of the more interesting suggestions I’ve received.
I thought I’d give the posts about the Crash the Superbowl contest a break for a while but Doritos just added a new batch of last minute uploads. That brings the total number of entries to 4023. Yeesssh. That’s a lot. I pretty much have given up on watching them all but I have been browsing. And in my browsing I saw this spot that features the real Flavor Flav!
Is that insane or what? It was just a matter of time before someone tried to make the finals using a “celebrity,” I guess. But the above commercial is a huge waste of Flavor Flav! He’s just sitting there. It’s not funny or interesting and the Doritos don’t even get more than a few seconds of screen time. I imagine it’ll be a real turn off to the judges since it’s pretty obvious that the folks behind this entry assumed that having Flav would be enough to propel them to the finals. But I think if Doritos wanted Flavor Flav as a sponsor, they would have gone out and hired him on their own.
Oh, the entry is listed as being submitted by “FlavorFlav.” However, someone in the comment section states that Flav did not write or direct the spot. He says that “two 25 year olds from Los Angeles, Matthew and Marthinus,” created the commercial. If Flavor Flav HAD actually made this entry himself it’d be many times more interesting to me.
UPDATE: The New York Post covered Flav’s entry into the CTSB contest and they imply that Flav himself created the commercial. They even got a response about the entry from someone at Doritos. Here’s the entire blurb from the Post:
Flavor Flav must be hard-up for cash. We hear the VH1 reality show star and erstwhile rapper is trying his hand as a TV commercial director as part of Doritos’ annual “Crash the Super Bowl” ad contest, in which users are asked to submit their own ads to compete for a $1 million prize. “He did this totally randomly and unprovoked,” says a source at the company. “And it’s actually pretty damn good.”
This is an interesting story and it’s just the type of thing that shows like TMZ would love to cover because it includes good video they can use. I wouldn’t be surprised if Flav’s entry was on TV a few times this week. That’d be great for Doritos but not so great for the team that made the spot. Dortitos will get lots of free advertising but the entry will get over-exposed. Who would consider a commercial to be the best of the Superbowl if they already saw it on the news in November? Maybe Doritos should just buy it right now and start airing it. It wouldn’t just be a commercial then, it’d be a story worthy of some news coverage. I also read today that Flavor Flav is more than $180,000 behind in his taxes. Man, imagine the story if Doritos paid Flav’s tax bill in exchange for that commercial!
I didn’t keep a close eye on the Doritos Crash the Superbowl Contest last year and now I can’t find an exact number of entries received. I’ve seen the number “1,900” a few times but I’ve also read that there were around 2,200 entries. I’ve decided to just go the lazy route and say that in 2008, about 2000 people entered the Crash the Superbowl contest. Sound good?
As for this year, after a few days of processing time it looks like the final number of entries for the 2009/2010 installment of CTSB is 3923. My God….if right now you decided to watch every CTSB entry it would take you more than 32 straight hours of viewing to get through them all! Wow….to the good people at Doritos, all I can say is “Good Luck!”
At this point I’ve watched (when I saw “watched” I mean I clicked the play button and gave each video a chance before clicking “next”) 2200 or so entries but I still haven’t seen a hands down winner. There hasn’t been one entry that I’ve seen where I said “yes! That’s a finalist.”
However, there have been plenty of times where I watched a video and thought to myself “GOOD GOD, NO!!!” So for fun, I thought I’d post a few of those commercials that will never, ever, EVER win because they have some kind of horrible, freaky, disturbing flaw. Think of these as the winners of the WTF Were They Thinking awards:
This first spot is called “Creepy Doritos Man” and boy does it live up to its name. The parents of the kid who made this need to get him into some therapy right away.
The videos that make it to the finals won’t just be awesome videos. They will be videos that the maximum number of people would enjoy since Doritos’ goal is to have their commercials take all three top spots on the USA today Ad meter. So it amazes me that so many people entered incredibly gross videos. Who would ever turn a dial to indicate that they loved watching someone do something like this……
At least it was a really well produced spot. And so is this next one. This next video is actually awesome. I think it’s the work of an evil genius. It looks and sounds amazing but it is so dark and depressing it just has no chance.
This is kind of weird but I have noticed a lot of entries that incorpotae negative stereotypes about Hispanics. Specifically I’ve seen a lot of sombreros and heard a lot of really bad jose Jimenez-esque accents. Can you imagine the PC apocalypse that would occur if Doritos aired a commercial like this during the superbowl?
The WTF-were-they-thinking rating of this next video is off the charts. The message of this commercial is that Doritos will kill you dead and then explode out of your corpse.
Finally, here’s the commercial with the biggest WTF moment of them all. It’s subtle and it’s fast so watch carefully.
No it’s not the seagull poop that I think was a bad idea. It was the attempt to get a laugh using a photoshoped picture of the destroyed World Trade Center.
Seems like every marketing guy and their momma is trying to entice us Joe Handycams into shooting ads for their company these days. There’s a lot of cash and a ton of prizes waiting to be won in online video contests and if you have even a smidge of writing, shooting or editing skills, all that awesome stuff could be yours. So you guys focus on winning ‘em and we’ll cover the aftermath of your glorious victories and/or pathetic defeats!
Video contests can get pretty ugly. Organizers do not always want to play by their own rules, other contestants flagrantly cheat and poorly run competitions cause frustrations for everyone. Wish you could bring a problem to the attention of a contest’s organizers but you’re worried that you might be branded a no-good troublemaker? We can help. Let us know about your problem and we’ll try and kick a little ass on your behalf. E-mail us at Videocontestnews@gmail.com.
