Hey folks, It’s your BFF for life Beardy, here. Every year we see a giant spike in traffic thanks to our coverage of the Crash the Super Bowl contest and I always like to do a quick post welcoming our new readers to the site. And man, did we get a lot of new readers last month! During the summer I made some SEO changes to VCN that caused traffic to increase by about 300%. So when you throw a bunch of CTSB traffic on top of those figures the results are pretty amazing. November 2011 turned out to be our biggest month ever with 13,901 Unique Visitors. To quote the great Charles Dickens, that shite is redonkulous!
Here are few other random things I want to mention:
If you’re here for Crash the SuperBowl info, we’ll be running a whole bunch of posts about the contest over the next 2 1/2 months. Next week we’ll even be featuring an interview with one of the 2011 CTSB finalists. And of course, we’ll post the Top 5 videos (along with reviews and analysis) as soon as Doritos makes the results public.
Next I want to say Thanks to all the filmmakers out there that sent in the links to their Doritos entries. I’ve decided to extend my “free mini-review offer” for a few more days. So far, I’ve crtiqued more than 100 submissions and I am pretty sure that at least one or two of the videos I’ve seen will wind up making the finals. If you’d still like to get a mini-review of your ad, please post the link in the comment section of this article: videocontestnews.com/2011/11/21/we-want-to-see-your-crash-the-super-bowl-entries/
As I’ve mentioned, I’m trying to do the impossible this month. I’m trying to watch at least a few seconds of every, single Crash the Super Bowl entry. (By the way, there were just under 5,000 submissions this year.) My goal is to compile a list of the 50 or so best submissions. The list will be posted on December 14th.
If you’re a new reader, I just want to mention that Video Contest News is a year-round operation. We run two or three posts a week about different contests. If you’re having a problem with a contest, let us know! Companies hate bad publicity and a single article about a crappy contest can sometimes inspire the sponsors to fix whatever has gone wrong. Or hey, you can even let us know if you have some good news to report! We post a lot of winning entries so if you’ve recently won a nice contest prize, I want to hear about it. You can reach me here: VideoContestNews@gmail.com.
Finally, if you like you can only stand to read 140 characters of video contest news at a time, follow us on twitter here. This month we’ll be “following back” all of our new followers!
Well D (for Doritos) is finally here. Right now it’s 4PM on November 21st which means you only have eight hours left to submit your 2011 Crash the Super Bowl entries. And then tomorrow the wait begins! I get a lot of e-mails this time of year and usually people want to know when Doritos will contact the finalists. The official rules state that Doritos will notify the finalists within 6 weeks. But 6 weeks from today happens to be Monday, January 2nd. During the last installment of The Crash, the finalists were announced on January 3rd. I’ve talked to a number of past finalists and it seems like Doritos usually calls the winners (yes, they’ll actually call you if you make the top 5) just before Christmas. But the contest did start a little later than usual this year so what the heck do I know.
Right now, there are already more than 1,500 submissions posted in CTSB gallery. But when the orange dust settles I bet there will be close to 2,800 entries. That’s a lot less than in year’s past but the lower number is probably because this year, the contest moderators have been doing a great job of keeping people from uploading multiple entries. In past installments, it seemed like every 10th video was a repeat. I guess people uploaded the same videos over and over because they weren’t sure if their submissions went though.
But 2,800 submissions is still a crazy amount. And guess what? This year I have made it my mission to watch every, single CTSB entry! If you watched 2,800 thirty-second commercials in a row, it would take you 23.33 hours to get through them all. But to be honest, I’m not watching every entry from start to finish. In fact, I usually click the “next” button on most entries after about 10 seconds. You see, my goal is to find all the submissions that have a good chance of making it to the Top 5. So if an entry has major technical problems that I suspect will keep it out of the running, I skip it. And after like 15 seconds if I’m not hooked I usually move on to the next video.
This method saves me a lot of time but it isn’t exactly thorough. Sometimes I get in the zone and I skip past videos before I really give them a chance. So readers, I need your help. If you see a really awesome Crash the Super Bowl entry, let me know! And yes, you can send me your own submission if you think it’s especially great. In about two weeks I will post a list of all my favorite 2011 CTSB submissions. How long will the list be? I have no idea! Instead of doing like a “Top 50″ I’m just going to link to every ad that I think is good enough to win….and maybe I’ll throw a few personal favorites in there as well.
So if you have a great entry you want to show me, click the comment button and post the link. Or you can e-mail me at videocontestnews@gmail.com. As always, I’m happy to do a mini-review of every ad you guys send me. I’ll try and be gentle but I’ll also be honest. Just a couple rules; please, don’t ask me to critique an entry that you didn’t help create. Also, I can only do public critiques. So if you want me to give you notes on your submission, post it in the comments section rather than e-mailing it to me. And finally, Full Disclosure: I did shoot a CTSB entry of my own but I will try and be objective and fair….even though my entry is easily the best this year!
Good luck everybody. If you get a call from Doritos saying that you made the finals, be sure to let me know! Yea sure, that would probably get you disqualified but I totally promise to keep your secret…
Believe it or not, I actually spent a year studying filmmaking in a somewhat-prestigious MFA film program. It was a huge waste of time and money and I left after the first year. But I did lean a few valuable life lessons while I was at that school. There were only 13 of us first-year grad students and one afternoon, we all took a walk from the Film Building over to the Theater Building. The purpose of the field trip was to meet undergraduate acting students. It turned out that for the undergrads, working on a grad student’s film was quite an accomplishment.
The students we met basically threw themselves at us. They performed scenes and did improvs and took any request we could come up with. Some of my classmates seemed to really enjoy the power and started asking the students to do more and more ridiculous things. After a while the whole exercise really started to feel inappropriate. As we were leaving, a beautiful young student came up to me, clawed my chest and enthusiastically proclaimed “use us….please use us…make us your whores….we will do anything you want!” She was being dramatic but I will never forget the look in her eyes. She meant what she was saying. Of course, she didn’t mean it literally. It wasn’t a sexual offer; it was an emotional one.
It was that moment I realized how much power directors have over actors. Aspiring actors are some of the most hardcore and dedicated people you’re ever going to meet. And an unscrupulous or uncaring director could really take advantage of a actor’s enthusiasm.
So when you start looking for actors and actresses for your video contest entries, you have to act like a professional and treat these people with respect. As the director, you have something that they want. There are thousands of hopeful actors in your city compared to only a few dozen directors who happen to be casting at the moment. That means that as a filmmaker, you have a lot of power. As I learned on that trip to the Theater Building back in grad school, even good people can let a little power go to their heads. So the very first thing you need to do when casting for a video project is to tell yourself you’re not going to take advantage of the people who want to work with you.
And the next thing you need to do is get your ass over to Craigslist.
Like most video contest filmmakers, I used to recruit my family and friends to appear in my contest entries. But it’s uncool to constantly ask people you know to act for you. So now I get almost all of my actors from Craigslist. (The irony is that every once in a while, a friend will ask me “How come you never ask me to be in your videos any more? I want to act again!”) Hiring actors on craigslist is like shooting fish in a barrel. And that’s why I prefaced this post with that little story about treating aspiring actors with respect. Just because it’s easy to find actors and actresses on Craigslist it doesn’t mean you should treat them like they’re disposable people that are lucky to be working with someone as brilliant as you.
If you’ve never used Craigslist to find actors before, you’ll first have to make a free Craigslist account. (It’s also free to post a call for actors). Once you have an account, head to the Gigs section and click on “Talent.” The rest of the process is pretty self-explanatory.
But how do you write a post that will get the attention of decent actors? The answer is simple; money. Offer money and you will hear from dozens and dozens of people. And you don’t have to offer a lot of money. $50 or even $100 lets people know that you’re serious and that you know what you’re doing. Yeah sure, there are a lot of actors out there that are so desperate to get footage for their reel that that they are willing to work for “copy and credit.” But personally, I don’t think it’s right to ask actors to work for free on a project that could potentially win you thousands of dollars. Plus, money ensures that the actors you select (probably) won’t flake out on you an not show up.
So what exactly should your post say? Well, honesty is the best policy. If you expect the shoot to take 4 hours, say that it will at least 4 hours. If you only want actors of a certain type, mention that too otherwise a lot of people you can’t use will be e-mailing you. Keep the whole thing short and upbeat. If you’re shooting a video contest entry, be sure to say that. But if you’re shooting an ad for a contest being run by Poptent, Mofilm, Tongal or Zooppa you should say that you’re “Shooting a commercial on Spec.” And you should also mention that if the sponsor likes the ad, they will purchase it and use it. That angle always works well for me since all actors would love to be in a “real” ad for a major company. However, I always refrain from mentioning the sponsor’s name in the post. You don’t want anyone to get the impression that you’re actually affiliated with the sponsor. So if I’m shooting a Dell video for a Poptent assignment, I’ll say I’m “shooting an online ad on spec for a well-known computer company.”
Once your ad is up you’re inbox will soon be flooded with replies. And you’ll quickly be faced with another dilemma. Should you respond to the people you are sure you do not want to cast? Personally, I don’t respond. I just archive their e-mail. Responding to each person who writes to you would take forever and most actors will understand that. Besides, who wants to get an e-mail saying “thanks but no thanks?”
After weeding out the actors you know you can’t use, you’ll be left with a handful of potential cast members. At this point, some directors would schedule in-person auditions. But not me. Why? Because $50 or $100 is not enough money for a director to be too picky. If you’re shooting a video for a client you should absolutely do auditions. But making people schlep across town just so you can audition them for a video that probably will never be purchased just isn’t fair to the actors. For sure, a lot of actors will audition for you if you ask them to…which is why you shouldn’t ask them. If you’re shooting a big, expensive Crash the Super Bowl entry then sure, hold auditions. That’s a different story. But if you’re just shooting a little video for for some contest where the prize is $2.500you’re wasting people if you make them audition. Instead, I recommend doing an over the phone audition. Either that or just cast people that have decent demo reels.
When you’re on the set, your goal should be to waste as little of your actors’ time as possible. Don’t tell them to show up at the same time as the crew! There is no reason they need to sit around for three hours while your lighting guys set up. On a low budget shoot, an actor’s “Call Time” should be about 30 minutes before they will be needed on set. If you keep things moving, your actors will be happy. Back in grad school, one thing the teachers drilled into our heads was the idea that the producer must ALWAYS provide meals for the cast and crew. That’s B.S. I always provide pop, water and snacks but a meal is overkill. If your shoot goes longer than 6 hours, you should probably spring for lunch. But I’ve found that food just slows things down and many actors and actresses don’t want to sit down and eat. They’d rather just do their part, get their cash and be on their way.
There’s one last thing that you need to decide before you cast actors for your video contest entries. Should you give them a cut of the prize money if you win? Sometimes I offer a cut to actors that I have worked with more than once. (If I cast the same actor twice it means I really, really like them). But usually I do not give my actors a cut if my video wins something. Why? Well, because they already got paid. As the filmmaker, you are the one taking all the risk and so it’s appropriate that you garner all the reward.
Well, there’s only one day left to enter Gain detergent’s massive “Smell like a Million Bucks” video contest. Since view counts help determine which videos make the finals, a few weeks back I encouraged readers to send me their submissions so that I could post them. The “viewing” deadline isn’t until July 11th so why not help these fine folks out by watching their videos? Before you can view any of the Gain entries, you first need to allow the Gain app on Facebook. Click here to do that: https://apps.facebook.com/gainmillionbucks
Are you back? Good. If you allowed the app you can now watch the entries. To view a video, click on the image. I’ll post the videos that were shot by long-time VCN readers first because I love them the most.
Now, I also entered this contest but because I’m classy I’ll post my own video last. It just got approved on Friday and thanks to the holiday weekend I’m way behind on views. So if you can spare a click, let me have it!
If anyone else who entered the Gain contest would like their entry posted here, just send me an e-mail and VideoContestNews@gmail.com and I’ll add it to this post.
Though January is already 19 days old it still feels like we’re in that gray area between the old year and the new. So before we get too deep into 2011 I thought we could take a look back at the top video contest entries of 2010.
Now I could ramble on for a paragraph or two about how much video contests changed in 2010, the record-breaking amounts of money that were won and the ways technology has enabled freelance filmmakers to create more professional looking videos. And then I could top it off by explaining why it’s a safe bet to say that User-generated content is going to be an important part of the future of advertising and blah, blah, blah. But anyone reading this probably already knows all that stuff! The factors I just listed are the reasons we all keep making video contest entries; the money and exposure are awesome and the rewards just keep keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
So let’s skip the exposition and get right to the good stuff; VCN’s VIDEO CONTEST ENTRY OF THE YEAR! Now I know what you’re thinking…it’s got to be “Underdog,” the Crash the Super Bowl entry that aired during the Super Bowl, scored #2 on the USA Today Ad Meter and won its creators a $600,000 bonus, right? Wrong! That choice would be to easy. Instead I’ve decided to recognize a different 2010 Crash the Super Bowl winner; SNACK ATTACK SAMURAI by Ben Krueger and Cole Koehler!
2010 Crash the Super Bowl finalist. Prize: $25,000 and aired during the Super Bowl:
So why Snack Attack Samurai? Well to start, it’s a great ad, it made it to the Crash the Super Bowl finals and it scored enough votes to air during the 2010 Super Bowl. But this humble, little video earns top honors this year not because of how much money it won (just $25,000!) but because of what it accomplished. By a fluke of timing, Snack Attack Samurai wound up playing near the end of last year’s Super Bowl right during a particularly exciting moment in the game. The next day, Nielson announced that the ad wound up being the MOST WATCHED COMMERCIAL IN THE HISTORY OF TELEVISION.
Like I said, this sort of happened by chance but it is still an incredible accomplishment. 100 Million people in the United States saw this ad on Super Sunday. That’s 1 out of 3 Americans. More people saw that first airing of Snack Attack Samurai than saw Avatar during its entire theatrical run. So why is this a big deal? It’s a big deal because in the roughly 80 year history of television, the commercial that wound up with the biggest audience ever wasn’t made by a team of marketing geniuses from Madison Avenue and it wasn’t produced by a humongous production company and it didn’t feature any big name stars. It was made by two dudes in Minnesota and it cost a tiny fraction of what most regular TV commercials cost. And here’s the craziest part of all…..those 100 million viewers? THEY DIDN’T CARE WHO MADE THE AD OR WHERE IT CAME FROM. Though a lot of them probably knew Snack Attack Samurai was part of the Crash the Super Bowl contest, to most viewers it was just another Super Bowl commercial. And to me folks, that means we’re entering an age when there aren’t any more “big guys” and “little guys;” there will only be the “talented” and the “untalented.” The playing field is getting very even, very quickly.
So that’s why Snack Attack Samurai gets our “entry of the year award.” But what was the BEST contest entry of the year? Well, chances are you’ve probably never seen this one. Our pick for the Best entry of 2010 was a short film called NUIT BLANCHE. It won first place and 100 grand in LG’s “Life’s Good” oneline film fest. The goal of the contest was to create an HD video based on the theme, “Life’s Good.” Though I suspect that Nuit Blanche wasn’t specifically shot for the contest it’s undeniably awesome and was THE BEST VIDEO CONTEST ENTRY OF THE YEAR:
Grand Prize Winner, LG’s Life’s Good HD Film Fest. Prize: $100,000:
Crazy right?? If you wanna have your mind blow, check out this “making of Nuit Blanche” video. Pretty much every effect was done digitally which means in 5 years, high school kids will probably be making videos with equally sophisticated effects.
Next up, here’s THE BIGGEST WINNER OF 2010. Yep, it’s UNDERDOG from the Crash the Super Bowl contest.
Crash the Super Bowl winner. Prizes: Won $625,000 and aired during the Super Bowl:
I think this video might also deserve the unofficial title of “Beardy’s Favorite Winner of the year.” The $600,000 that Underdog won was technically a bonus for scoring well on the USA Today Ad meter. Those bonuses were not guaranteed so you could also consider our next ad to be the “Biggest Winner of the year.” But let’s call this one THE WINNER OF THE BIGGEST GUARANTEED CONTEST PRIZE. It’s entitled “Russell’s Notebook and it won first place and $250,000 in the big Godaddy summer video contest.
Grand Prize Winner, Godaddy Summer contest. Prize: $250,000:
Can't embed this one so click to view
$250,000 by the way happens to the be largest guaranteed video contest prize EVER. The ad has also supposedly played on TV but I haven’t seen it air myself.
Next up, here’s THE MOST VIRAL VIDEO CONTEST ENTRY OF 2010:
Crash the Super Bowl Finalist. Prize: Won $25,000 and aired during the Super Bowl:
EVERYBODY (and their Momma) has watched and re-watched this ad. I didn’t like it when I first saw it but it really grew on me. Doritos really knew what they were during when they picked House Rules as a finalist last year. The ad became a viral hit even before the Super Bowl and to date it’s been viewed almost 10 Million times on the Crash the Super Bowl youtube channel alone.
So those were the big winners of 2010. But here’s a quick list of some of the other video contest entries that scored big last year.
These two commercials were made for a Poptent Assignment for Quiznos. The ads wound up airing on TV for months and they are so well made that I’m guessing few viewers would ever guess they weren’t produced by Quizno’s regular ad firm:
VALUE MENU! Purchased by Quiznos. Price: $7,500.
U-543. Purchased by Quiznos. Price: $7,500.
Godaddy actually ran two big video contests in 2010; a “Spring” contest and a “Summer” contest. The winner of the “Spring” contest and $100,000 was entitled “Go Momma” and the ad aired on TV a bit. But I think the big winner of that contest was actually the SECOND Place ad; FingerFighting.com:
Second Place Winner, Godaddy Spring Contest. Prize: $50,000:
Though Fingerfighting.com won less money, Godaddy aired it on TV like crazy. I still see it run every once in a while! And the Phoenix-based filmmakers who made it actually won another $25,000 runner-up prize in Godaddy’s Summer Contest with an ad called Isawbigfoot.co. I talked to the director of the ad a few weeks back and he said Godaddy is actually airing the ad in India.
Here’s another video contest entry that made it to TV. This promo was shot for a Zooppa-run contest for TMZ and won first place.
First Place Winner, TMZ promo contest. Prize: $10,000:
First Place Winner, Are You Debit Smart Contest. Prize: $5,000:
HUMAN HEAD. Purchased by Fed-ex via Poptent’s Fed-Ex assignment. Price: $5,000.
1/20 UPDATE: A reader sent me a link to this video that won the Mofilm American Idol Walmart competition. Apparently this ad even aired during the American Idol Finale. It’s pretty good. Prizes won include a trip to LA, tickets to the American Idol finale and thousands of dollars in cash and Walmart Gift cards.
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:
Based on how the Ad Meter works, does this spot have a chance at scoring well?
If people saw this ad on tv during the Super Bowl, would they like it enough to want to see it again later online?
Does this video fit the style of videos that the judges at Fritolay seem to like? (based on past finalist selections)
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.)
Is it funny?
And those questions got me to my list of 30. Pepsi won’t announce their 5 finalist choices until January 3rd 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.
I seriously was eating some of these like an hour ago
I can’t believe there are only 24 days to go before the deadline to enter the Doritos Crash the Superbowl contest. Time is flying by. So far, only about 100 people have submitted entries. Last year, Doritos received more that 1,900 entries! So to keep up with that number, 75 people a day will have to start uploading commercials. However it’s probably more likely that a thousand videos will be uploaded during the last week of the contest. There does seem to be a whole lot of interest in the contest at least. Even videos that just went up have hundreds of views.
But maybe there just won’t be as many entries this year? For one thing, most of the country has been a lot colder than normal this month. The area where I live has had rainy and colder than average weather for the last 20 days or so! That makes filming your big picnic scene or whatever kind of hard. But of course the big factor this year will probably be the economy. Last year the winners of the million dollar “snowglobe” commercial spent $2,000 on their spot. Know many people who are willing to spend that much money on a project that might get them nothing in the end, these days? I guess we’ll see. I have a feeling a lot of entries are going to be shot this weekend.
Doritos has made some nice improvements to the contest site in the last few days. For one, they mercifully added a “MUTE” button so that you could turn off the annoying rock music that plays in a loop. They also added a feature where you could link to or embed specific videos. So I thought I’d give it a try. Out of the 108 videos that have so far been submitted for the contest, these two are hands down, without question, the best:
The one with the shark is pretty good and was made by Jared Cicon who was a finalist in the contest in 2007 I think. That shark is by far the best prop and best sight gag used in any of the entries. The one with the guy putting his head through the roof IS one of the best of the submitted videos but I think by next week it will fall out of the running. For a video that relies on slapstick and action I think it’s lacking a really strong punchline and isn’t crazy enough for the superbowl. But still, it’s funny and pretty well done.
So, those are the two best entries. If the commercial you’re planning to shoot isn’t at least as good as these then you might want to go back to the drawing board while you still have time left.
UPDATE: Jared, the creator of the Shark commercial wrote a great blog post about the making of his spot and included some nice strategic tips. He even came to VCN and left an informative comment to this post. So to read more about “The Video Contest King” check out his website and click the “View Comments” button below to learn more about his Crash the Superbowl plans.
