If you had asked me last week whether or not I would enter this year’s installment of Doritos’ annual Crash the Super Bowl contest I would have said, no…probably not. The contest had just gotten too big and to me it felt like the whole concept had kind of run its course. Plus statistically, it’s the worst video contest you could ever enter. Last year, more than 4,000 videos were submitted. Of those 4,000 ads, Doritos picked 6 finalists and gave them $25,000 each. That means that every contestant had a mere .0015% chance of winning $25,000. And while a total of $5 Million was at stake, none of that money was guaranteed. The only way you could win one of the big cash prizes was to get enough votes to air during the game and then get ranked as one of the Top 3 ads of the entire game.

So I kind of had my mind set on skipping this year’s Crash. But yesterday afternoon, the details of the 2010/2011 contest were announced and I am very, very impressed by some of the major changes that have been made this time around. Here’s how the contest is going to be different from years past.

1. Essentially there will be two Crash the Superbowl commercial contests; one for Doritos and one for Pepsi Max. (Pepsi owns Frito-lay)
   
2. Judges will pick 5 Doritos finalists and 5 Pepsi Max finalists. That means 10 people will win at least $25,000 each.
3. A total of 6 of these finalists will air during the superbowl; 3 for each product.
4. Four of the ads that air during the game will be picked by voters but judges will also pick one Pepsi Max ad and one Doritos ad to air.

That last point sealed the deal for me. The fact that voters pick all the commercials that air during the super bowl was an even bigger turn off for me than the odds of making it to the finals. Good for them for finally making that change. And letting contestants pick between Doritos or Pepsi Max is also an awesome idea. People who enter this contest every year are probably tapped out of ideas for Doritos ads. I’ll probably be entering the Pepsi Max category just because it’s uncharted territory.

In addition to the new rules, Doritos/Pepsi Max are again paying out big cash prizes to any videos that land in the top 3 on the Super Bowl ad meter. First place gets you One Million bucks, second gets you $600K and third gets $400K. And if Crash ads take all three top spots each winning filmmaker gets a million dollar bonus. Last year that seemed nearly impossible but now that 6 CTSB ads are going to air, it seems a little more-do-able.

Doritos and Pepsi Max announced all the details of this year’s contest at a big event that was broadcast live on Ustream. The announcement was recorded and I’ll post the video below.  If you plan on entering the Crash this year WATCH THIS VIDEO! It features discussions with reps from Pepsi Max and Doritos plus the two big-time ad execs who help pick the winners. Plus there’s a second discussion with the Herbert Brothers who are the guys who scored a million dollars and first place on the ad meter with their CTSB entry “Free Doritos” in 2009.

10/2 UPDATE.  The video has been removed from the Ustream but you can see the entire thing here:

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I recommend you skip right to the 20:27 mark for the second question asked during the Q&A. Doritos must have invited past CTSB contestants to the event because the people who get up to ask questions seem to be filmmakers familiar with the contest. The 2nd question asked was excellent and the response is something everyone entering this year’s Crash the Superbowl contest should hear. To paraphrase, the guy in the audience asked:

“One of things we low-budget filmmakers struggle with is budget and camera quality…I know that in theory, low-budget is ok but I’ve noticed that a lot of the winners have a very polished, professional look and they use the RED camera or they shoot on film…do you think getting a RED or shooting on film (both very expensive things to do) could create a better image and help a video be a winner?”

The response from Rudy Wilson, the head of the contest was almost shocking. In fact, what he said was so major that I’m going to transcribe his answer word for word:

“I can tell you from a judging standpoint…obviously we have the agency come in (an ad firm helps narrow down the list of finalists) and the brand people evaluate it as well (but) we’ve never even had that conversation…around whether or not something looks…what do you call it, the RED camera? I couldn’t even tell you what that is. You could walk up here with 5 cameras and I couldn’t (tell you which one was a RED.) But what I can tell you is if it makes us laugh, you’ve got a chance. We’re really, truly opening this up for people that don’t have the opportunity, and we understand that when we say you don’t have the opportunity you might not have all the tools. So we’re very open to looking at the gamut of quality. So do your thing…we’ll support it.”

If you’re a fan of the Crash the Super Bowl contest you might be having a hard time believing what you just read. It just doesn’t line up with Doritos’ previous choices for finalists. All but one of the 2008/2009 finalist ads were shot with RED cameras (they cost about 18 grand) And several of the 2006/2007 finalists were shot on actual film. And last year, some of the finalist videos were shot with RED cameras but all of them looked very, very slick. (I’ll admit, some of them had minor technical issues though)  No Crash the Super Bowl finalist video has ever looked rough or homemade.

The guy who said that the judges have never “had that conversation” is a very important guy at Doritos and he actually created the idea for the whole CTSB contest.  And I believe him when he says that if your video can make the judges laugh, you have a shot and production values aren’t discussed. But last year, Doritos received more than 4,000 submissions for the contest. I don’t think it’s likely that the top-ranking decision-makers are viewing all of those videos. They probably have an entire team of people that work to create a large list of potential finalists and then those videos are show to the primary judges. So I suspect the folks at the top don’t have to talk about quality because few amateur-level submissions actually get to them. It can’t just be a coincidence that the all of the finalist videos Doritos have ever picked were tv-quality. If Doritos really will consider ads of all quality levels I think by now, one of the 16 or so videos that made the finals in previous years would have been shot with a Flip camera or an Iphone (one of the marketing guys in the video even mentions shooting ideas with Iphones at his company.)

So while the official word is that the doritos/pepsi will consider videos of all quality levels, the reality is that with maybe , of all previous Crash the Super Bowl finalists have been shot with HD or better cameras. Even the 2007 winning ad that the filmmakers stated cost $12 to make was shot using a $6,000 camera and a 35mm lens adapter. History tells us that to make it to the finals your entry needs to be tv-quality. But if Doritos/Pepsi actually came out and said that, a whole lot fewer people would enter. So if you’re planning on entering this contests, I recommend you try and make your production as professional as possible. I’m not saying to make your video super-slick….just try and make it as technically perfect as you can if you want a shot at making it to the top 10.

There’s a ton of other interesting stuff in that video and it will really help you understand what the judges will be looking for. So like I said, watch it.

The Crash the Superbowl site is now live and the 2011 rules can be found here: /official_rules.html

You can start submitting entries on September 27th and the deadline is November 15th. Oh…another nice change to the contest this year? Doritos got rid of that annoying rock music that would play in a loop whenever you visited CrashtheSuperbowl.com. It will not be missed.