I checked the stats for Videocontesnews.com yesterday and was surprised to see that traffic to the site had more than doubled in the last two weeks. One reason for the jump seems to be that VCN just made it to the front page of google results for the search term “video contests.” (boosh!) But it turns out a lot of our new visitors are finding the site via a different set of search terms; “Doritos, Crash, Superbowl, back and 2011.”

I did some checking and it was exactly one year ago today, on 9/10/2009 that Doritos announced the 2009/2010 installment of their annual consumer-generated commercial contest. But so far, no announcements about a 2010/2011 installment have been made. Weirder than that though, last year’s version of CrashtheSuperbowl.com is still up and live. If I’m remembering correctly, last fall the website disappeared a few weeks before the 2010 contest was announced, presumably so it could be re-tooled.

Now, a giant, multi-million dollar social media campaign doesn’t just appear online overnight. So I figured that if Pepsico/Frito-Lay/Doritos was bringing the contest back again this year I could find some kind of hint about it somewhere on the web.  And sure enough, I did. Below is a screen grab from a new video posted at Doritos’ online HQ, Snack Strong productions.  The video is called, “The History of CTSB: Four years of Crash.” It’s very cool and it nicely recaps the previous CTSB contests, including the 2009/2010 installment. And after the recap of last year’s Crash, the Voice Over guy says, “Will this year be the biggest Crash yet? That’s for you to decide.” I can’t embed the actual clip so click the image to watch it:

Since the video mentions the accomplishments of the 2010 winners (e.g. Snack Attack Samuri was the most watched commercial ever) the video was obviously made after this year’s Superbowl. And that means it was made to promote the as-of-yet un-announced 2011 installment of the Crash the Superbowl contest. The Snack strong productions site yields a few more clues too. There’s also an inspirational video aimed at filmmakers featuring some of last year’s finalists. (it’s the main video on the CTSB section of the site.) But what’s really interesting is this:

That’s just one of several elements in the CTSB section but I think it might reveal the theme of the 2011 contest. That blurb of text at the bottom of the image makes it sound like this time, filmmakers might have to pick between Cool Ranch and Nacho Cheese flavored Doritos when they shoot their ads; possibly to determine “The World’s Favorite Chip.”

So there’s your answer folks.  Yes, the Crash the Superbowl contest seems to be on again this year.  Now for the next big question; Will you be entering?