2011 December | Video Contest News - Featuring News about Video Contests!

Happy 2012 from VCN!

Posted by Dan L. on December 30th, 2011

!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy New Year’s Eve, Eve everybody! Man, is it just me or was 2011 totally f-ing banana cakes? The world might have gone crazy in 2011 but for me personally this was a pretty good year. I won an assload of video contests! In fact, probably 90% of my income this year came from winning video contests and from running this site. I didn’t make a fortune or anything but did pretty ok!

And VideoContestNews.com did pretty damn ok this year too. I am constantly amazed at how many people actually visit this goofy blog every day. In November we set a record for most unique visitors in one month: 13,901. And if at least 383 more people visit VCN in the next 34 hours, we’ll have a new monthly attendance record. New Year’s Day Update: We did it! Decemeber was VCN’s busiest month ever with 14,072 unique visitors.

A lot of that traffic is coming from people who are looking for info about the Crash the Super Bowl contest. If that sounds like you, I hope you’ll bookmark us or subscribe to our RSS feed and keep visiting us throughout the year. But if all you care about is Doritos-related news, we’ll have a whole lot of that for you in the next two months. Last week we announced our picks for the 25 entries that have the best shot of making the finals of the Crash the Super Bowl contest. But on Tuesday, January 2nd were going to announce our predictions for which 5 submissions will actually made the finals. Then after Fritolay officially announces the finalists on Thursday morning we’ll be posting reviews of all the winning commercials. TAKE NOTE: If anyone reading this actually makes the Crash the Super Bowl finals this year, let us know as soon as you can and if we like you’re entry we might just endorse it and promote it here on the blog during the month-long voting process.

I’ll end the year with a few Thank-Yous. First, thanks to all of you for checking out the site. And an even bigger thanks to those of you who leave comments or send me tips via e-mail. Oh…and an even bigger, BIGGER thank you to those of you who have been voting for my dumbass contest entries this year! I know i asked for a lot of votes in 2011 but be aware that if you ever need some votes yourself you should feel free to e-mail me. And because I can’t help myself, I’m going to squeeze in one more vote request. Right now I’m in a big contest being run by a company named Randstad. I’m only a few votes away from being in first place in my category. It only takes one click to vote and the deadline is Sunday at midnight. So head here if you’d like to help me out with a vote!

Finally, I’d like to thank all the contest-hosting sites that ran ads on VCN this year. That list includes Poptent, Mofilm, Zooppa, Highly Humorous and Tongal. All of those sites are running tons and tons of big-money contests right now so I suggest you check them out and start planning your first contest entry of the new year.

Good Luck in 2012 everybody and I will see you in the future!

Chevy and Mofilm announce the finalists in the Route 66 Super Bowl commercial contest

Posted by Dan L. on December 27th, 2011

There's more than one way to crash the Super Bowl

Just before Christmas, Mofilm revealed the finalists in Chevy’s Route 66 Super Bowl commercial contest. This mega-competition was open to filmmakers from all over the world and the winning ad will play during the 2012 SuperBowl. The top filmmaker will also receive $25,000 Actually, there are a bunch of cash prizes at stake and there will be different winners from different regions of the globe.

So how are the winners determined? A public vote…right? Wrong! Though the video gallery is full of ways you can “like” or share the finalists, views and votes will have no impact on which videos will win. Judges have the final say in all stages of this contest which is the only way a contest like this should be run. The only reason that companies bother with public votes is because it’s a free and easy form of publicity. But Mofilm came up with a very clever way to get that cheap social media coverage without diluting the integrity of their contest. They are running a side competition where the “Top Sharer” of the chosen commercials will win $10,000. Basically whoever directs the most viewers to the contest site wins. If you want to try and get in on that action, head here.

I’ve watched all 32 finalist commercials and they range from pretty bad to pretty awesome. There are a few ads that seem like they only made it this far because they were the only decent entries that came out of a particular region. But I’d say at least 80% of the finalist spots are very strong. Here are two of my favorites. Click the images to view:

Keys by Charles Hayes, USA: From Mofilm: Every key has a purpose…and every production has its challenges. Fim Fact: On day one our producer had her car broken into and all the props stolen. But, from the moment we came up with this we knew we had something touching, so through torrential rain, home made jibs and lots of favours, we pushed through and produced something we all love!

Keys

Cindy, I Love You by Jude Chun, Korea: From Mofilm: A man goes above and beyond, determined to finish one last item on a bucket list.

Cindy, I Love You

Keys is so professional that it could start airing on TV today and no one would ever suspect it was shot for a video contest. Cindy, I Love You is pretty weird and the twist at the end is a little grim and heavy-handed but for some reason I just really like it. Like I said, there are a bunch of good submissions and you should take a few minutes to scroll through Mofilm’s beautiful video gallery. (Seriously, its classy and clean design puts Doritos obnoxious and loud Crash the Super Bowl gallery to shame.) But if you only have time to watch one of these ads, watch this one:

Chevy Driving Academy by Kenneth Wales & Jason Lansing, USA: From Mofilm: A man is put to the test to see if he has what it takes to become a Chevy driver. Film Fact: The shoot was as intense as the Driving Academy – the actor almost threw up after multiple takes from flipping upside-down, it took 4 hours to hit the mark when shooting the Corvette and the Dealer was never meant to be bald…until they met Amazon!

Chevy Driving Academy

Pretty damn good, huh? I’ll be amazed if that one doesn’t win the top prize. To view all of the Chevy finalists, head here:

When will the Crash the Super Bowl finalists be notified?

Posted by Dan L. on December 26th, 2011

In the last few weeks I’ve gotten a bajillion e-mails and comments from readers all asking the same thing: When will Doritos notify the winners of the Crash the Super Bowl contest? So I thought I’d do a quick post and try and answer the question. Doritos doesn’t like to talk about when and how the CTSB finalists are contacted but here are a few facts to consider:

1. The rules of the 2012 CTSB contest say that winners will be notified within 6 weeks of the submission deadline. Since the deadline was November 21st, that means that Fritolay must contact the finalists by January 2nd. But voting begins on January 4th so there’s no way they can wait that long.

2. I’ve talked to a lot of past finalists and it seems like Doritos called all of them just a few days before Christmas; usually around December 23rd.

3. But…this installment of the Crash the Superbowl contest was launched much later than normal. So there’s a chance that the contest timeline is a little off this year.

4. Recently, I interviewed one of last year’s Pepsi Max CTSB finalists and he said he was contacted by Pepsi just 3 or 4 days before the results were made public. But the pepsi contest was run by a different set of judges. However, thanks to social networking sites like facebook, twitter etc, these days it would be very easy for the news about who won to leak out. So maybe doritos will adopt Pepsi’s tactic and contact finalists at the last minute to minimize leaks.

5. Of course, literally notifying the winners at the last minute isn’t really possible. Fritolay will have a lot of paper work for the winners (and their actors) to fill out like tax Forms, release forms, location releases and SAG paperwork. The rules say that all that paperwork must be “received by Sponsor no later than three (3) days after notification of being a Finalist.”

6. But I don’t think they’ll wait just 3 days before the deadline. The rules actually state that potential finalists may be required to submit to a background check if Fritolay requests one. (Guess it would be pretty embarrassing if a sex offender created Doritos’ Super Bowl commercial.) Doritos will probably need at least a week to vet the potential finalists if they decide to do a basic background check on any or all of them.

So if I had to take a guess I would say that the finalists were probably contacted TODAY. If they weren’t then I would say that tomorrow has got to be Doritos’ last chance. If they wait any longer they’re just cutting it too close. So if you don’t get a call by wednesday. December 28th I think it’s safe to say that you didn’t make the cut.

But whatever happens, we’ll all know the results on the morning on January 4th. Be sure to visit VCN that day to read reviews of all the finalists and to let us know what you think about Doritos’ picks. Good luck, everybody!

The 2012 Crash the Super Bowl Contenders!

Posted by Dan L. on December 21st, 2011

This fall I sent a ridiculous goal for myself; I wanted to try and watch every, single Crash the Super Bowl entry and create a list of the best submissions. But this year Doritos received a record number of videos. In all, about 5,000 ads are on display in the contest gallery. If one person were to sit and watch every one of those 30 second spots it would take them almost 42 man-hours to get through them all. That’s a hell of a lot of zombies and crotch shots for one person to endure!

I tried to “watch” about 100 entries a day but I’ve been crazy busy lately and I just had to throw in the towel after about 4,000 videos. And I put “watch” in quotation marks because I didn’t actually watch all of those entries all the way to the end. In fact, I would estimate that I only watched 10% of those ads all the way through. Why? Because to be frank, you can tell if a submission has a shot at winning after just the first few seconds. If an entry has terrible sound and bad picture and features people drinking beer or wearing t-shirts with recognizable trademarks on them then that entry is simply un-airable. So I skipped past most of the entries after about 3 or 4 seconds.

However, even though I only made it through about 70 or 80% of the submissions I think I was able to find most of the best entries in the contest. For the videos I couldn’t get to, I scrolled through the video gallery and stopped to check out the ads that had high-quality looking thumbnails. That might sound like a weird strategy but try it; you’ll find that if an entry’s thumbnail image looks good, the ad itself is probably decent. But I also owe a huge thanks to all of our readers who submitted their links or who sent me tips about great entries. I bet half of this “best of” list came from reader suggestions.

So how did I determine whether or not an entry was a contender? First, I eliminated every entry that had the following problems:

1. Un-fixable trademark or copyright violations

2. Un-fixable rule violations.

3. Offensive of disgusting content.

4. An idea that has already been done to death.

5. Very low production values.

Though Doritos has claimed that production quality doesn’t matter to them…it does. In 5 years, Doritos has never picked a finalist that had bad lighting, video or sound. So I would say that production values are a HUGE (but unofficial) factor in picking the Top 5. Every year Fritolay’s judges pick some not-so-funny but gorgeous looking, (relatively) big budget submissions. But they have never picked a hilarious but kind of crappy looking video for the finals. In fact, I’d estimate that at least 60% of all the past CSTB final ads were either shot on actual film or with high-end RED cameras. And this year I bet at least 3 of the 5 finalists will be shot with REDs.

So anyway, those were the problems I looked for. If a video didn’t have any of those issues, and if I was able to get through the whole video without being bored or turned off, here are the 4 questions I asked myself:

1. Based on how the Ad Meter works, does this spot have a chance at scoring well?

2. If people saw this ad on tv, would they like it enough to want to see it again later online?

3. Based on past finalist selections, does this video fit the tone and style of the videos that the judges at Fritolay seem to like?

4. Is it funny, memorable or special?

And that left me with a list of about 50 videos. Then I whittled that number down to this list of 25 ads. No wait…actually I’m going to share 26 videos. Why 26? Because one of these videos in my submission! I’ll just mix it in with the rest and you guys can consider it like a little Easter egg. If you can guess which one is mine, post your pick in a comment! Seriously though, I’m very proud of my team’s entry and I swear, if I hadn’t made it I would still include it in this list. But of course, my entry would obviously suit my own sense of humor since I wrote the thing.

Finally, there’s one other point I feel the need to make. Because this is a list of ads that I think have a shot at making the Final 5, there are a few videos here that I personally freaking HATE. But as I said, Doritos seems to really prefer gorgeous-looking ads so there are a few amazing looking but un-funny videos on this list.

And now, here is VCN’s list of the 2012 Crash the Superbowl Contenders! All the entries will be listed in alphabetical order. Click the images to view the entries. Here we go!

A DAY AT THE ZOO: This one is full of action, comedy and big wacky characters. I’d call this one a sure thing but the costumes are TOO good. I think the Zebra and the Lion are supposed to be the characters from the movie Madagascar. If that’s the case this video could never get cleared to air.

A Day at the Zoo

BABY DORITOS: This one is just bonkers. But I like it. It probably is too crazy to make the final 5 though:

Baby Doritos

BAD MONSTER: This is one of my personal favorites. It’s such a pure and simple idea that I can’t believe it’s never been done before. But the Universal-style Frankenstein might also prevent this one from getting cleared for air.

Bad Monster

BIRD OF PREY: I’m not going to mince words; I despise this entry. I’ve seen too many poor, dead birds that smashed into windows in my life to think this is funny. But I think I hate this entry all the more because I know it will probably make the finals. Sorry to get Shakespearean on you but this ad is full of sound and fury but signifies nothing. It’s not funny but it LOOKS funny and it hits all the right beats. But the comedy falls flat because there is simply no reason this goofy guy should be acting like a bird. So it’s just crazniess for craziness’ sake. One more issue: The lead actor in this ad was also the lead in 2010 Crash the Super Bowl finalist ad, Casket. (He played the guy in the titular casket.) Actually, I did some googling and Bird of Prey was made by the same LA Megachurch that created Casket. Casting the same lead actor was a bad move; if Bird of Prey makes the finals it will look like that actor is some fritolay executive’s nephew of something. If the Doritos judges pass on this ad I’ll be pretty darn proud of them. They won’t though. It will be in the finals.

Bird of Prey

BROKEN CAPE: This one’s just amusing and quirky. It kind of reminded me of the simple “keep your hands of my momma, keep your hands off my doritos” ad from a few years ago.

Broken Cape

CALL OF THE SEA: The judges in this contest love weird, random, quirky stuff and nothing is weirder or more random than a fisherman catching “the king of the sea.” I originally considered this spot too strange to include on this list but about 10 minutes after I watched it I was compelled to go back and watch it again. So it’s re-watch-ability sealed the deal for me.

Call of the sea

CAVES AND MONSTERS: Brilliant. Clearly a masterpiece that was created by some kind of video contest genius. Doritos should just cancel the whole contest and send the director of this ad the million bucks…whoever he may be! (Winky-face!!)

Caves and Monsters

DISTURBANCE: I feel like 1 out of every 10 entries I watched this year was a parody of Paranormal Activity. This is the only good one I saw. Actually, I’d say this is one of my personal favorites. The twist at the end is perfect.

DODGEBALL HUSTLE: I think I had this day dream 100 times when I was a kid.

Dodgeball Hustle

DORITOS DAD: This one isn’t too crazy or quirky but it’s funny and well made. It could sneak into the Top 5.

Doritos Dad

DORITO TRIANGLE: This is hands down one of the slickest CTSB ads ever made. I can’t imagine how much it cost or how much time went into creating this spot. The funny thing is though that this ad probably can’t win! It references a bunch of real people and I don’t think you can refer to people like Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa in a commercial without getting the consent of their estates. Oh and also the ad isn’t too funny. It’s sort of only impressive because it’s competing against a bunch of videos that were shot by teenagers with flip cameras.

Doritos Triangle

FOOD FIGHT BLITZ: Every year Doritos gets a million food fight videos. But this one was shot with a high-end camera and looks pretty slick.

Food Fight Blitz

GRAVITY: This one looks great and it has a big, shocking, violent ending which is always a big plus. But in this case, one of the people getting hurt was a woman. And she gets smooshed pretty hard. So I’m not sure if Doritos would take a gamble and pick any ad that showed violence happening to a woman. When a dude gets hit in the nuts it’s funny but when a woman gets crushed and (presumably) killed in a commercial people are going to get upset. To make things trickier, the editor inserted the famous “Wilhelm Scream” and I don’t think any unoriginal sound effects are allowed. It’s also a real turn off that the makers of this ad already built a slick website asking people to “Vote for Gravity” if it makes the finals:

Gravity

HITCHHIKER: This was one of the very first great ads I saw this year. I think this one is a MAJOR contender but there’s a chance that the surprise at the end has been over-exposed thanks to similar “shock” videos on the web.

Hitchhiker

HIPSTER KIDS: This one makes the list just because it’s a gorgeous, expensive looking ad that was probably made by some of NYU’s most promising film students. It’s not funny though and hipsters and cute kids acting like adults both make my skin crawl. So this one is a double-whammy for me but I can see how the judges could get blinded by the amazing cinematography and the little kids in funny costumes.

Hipster Kids

IMAGINARY FRIEND: Pretty good. This one seems like it was made by some people who carefully studied what kind of ads usually make the finals.

Imaginary Friend

JURASSIC KARMA: This one is cute and the ending did make me laugh out loud. The CGI is amazing for a video contest but I’m thinking it might not be pro enough for the super bowl.

Jurassic Karma

KITTY HEIST: This entry was directed by two-time Crash the Super Bowl finalist Kevin Wilson. (He directed Casket in 2010 and Birthday Wish in 2011) This one is obviously cute but the only reason this ad is any good is because the producers poured a bunch of money into this project. In fact, the same thing could be said of Casket and Birthday wish. All 3 ads were shot with RED cameras and were probably cost at least $3,000 each to make. And that bothers me because it feels like this one filmmaker is able to just buy his way into the finals every year. And the more he wins, the more money he has to spend on his entry next year. This same director also submitted a second, very slick entry this year entitled Sling Baby but I think Kitty Heist has a much better chance of making the top 5.

Kitty Heist

MAKE THE MOST OF IT: A few weeks ago I listed the “Top 5 most over-done Crash the Super Bowl ideas” and right at the top of my list was “Zombies.” This year it felt like 5% of the submissions I watched had zombies in them. I thought zombies in a CTSB entry would never seem fresh. And then I saw this entry. This one is absolutely perfect. But it might be a little too edgy for the Super Bowl. Not only is there a little gore, this spot acknowledges the existence of sex (gasp!) The actors are fantastic and they really nail the excellent script. If the Doritos judges feel like making one really ballsy pick this year, it will be this ad.

Make the Most of it

MAYBE NEXT YEAR: This is kind of a strange one but that baby cracks me up. If this aired during the super bowl people would just stop talking/eating/whatever to stare at the giant baby face and the pretty cinematography.. But unlike a lot of slick looking ads, this entry actually has a strong “punchline.”

Maybe Next Year

MY FRIEND ARCHIE: Even by professional standards, the CGI in this video is pretty darn good. And it also manages to be kind of funny. But what matters in this contest is humor. If Doritos wanted slick CGI, they could just pay ILM to make them the most kick ass robot dog ever. Still, if this one makes the final 5 I won’t be totally shocked.

My Friend Archie

PAINT FIGHT: I personally like ads that have lots of action and a very simple storyline. Actually, the judges at fritolay seem to like that too. This ad has both of those features.

Paint Fight

PINATA: I have seen roughly 100 billion CTSB entries that feature a piñata that is either a bag of Doritos or is filled with dortios. I don’t really like the concept but of all the piñata-themed ads I’ve seen, this one is the best.

Pinata

SERIOUS PROBLEM: I saw a bunch of pretty good ghost-themed ads this year. Many of them had really great effects but not a lot of laughs. But I thought this one was kind of neat. It’s not super hilarious or anything but its good for a chuckle. Plus I like that he ghost is a pilgrim for no good reason.

Serious Problem

SURPRISINGLY BIG TASTE: This is one of the only entries that actually made me laugh out loud. And it’s exciting too! I think it’s one of the most suspenseful video contest entries I’ve ever seen. You are just sitting and waiting to see what kind of horrible fate befalls that Innocent little toddler.

Surprisingly Big Taste

TONGUE LOVE: I’m going to call it: Tongue Love is my favorite 2012 Crash the Super Bowl entry. It’s simply ridiculous and awesome. The guy in the video is amazing and the twist at the end is just icing on the cake. I’m worried the tongue-humping might be a little too graphic for the judges though. Plus I think that there might even be a rule that says that characters aren’t allowed to sing or rap over the provided music.

Tongue Love

Wow, what a perfect place to end the list! Hey see what I mean about videos with good thumbnails? Almost every one of these videos can be summed up with a single, iconic image. So…that’s the list. If you’re entry didn’t make it, please don’t take it personally. There were at least 25 other strong submissions I considered for this article. So just tell yourself that yours just barely missed the cut. If I missed any really great spots, be sure to leave a comment and me know. And if you think my list is full of shit you can let me know that too.

One final note: Today is December 21st. And aside from being my birthday (yes, for serious) it is also the day that Fritolay might be calling the potential finalists! I have talked to a lot of former Crash the Super Bowl finalists and I always ask them “How and when did Doritos give you the good news?” They always say the same thing; they got a call 2 or 3 days before Christmas eve. So I hope you all charged your cell phones last night. Good luck everybody!

All I want for Christmas is….your vote!

Posted by Dan L. on December 20th, 2011

Hello my friends! In this season of generosity and good will, won’t you consider voting for my entry in Randstad’s “Inspiring Expert’s” Video Contest? Voting is CRAZY SIMPLE. All you have to do is click this link or the image below to go to my video. The you hit the green “Vote Now” button and that’s it, you voted!

Click my face to vote!

Yeah, the video is kind of dull but for this contest people were just supposed to talk about their careers and share some inspiring words. But here’s one interesting thing about this video; I shot it with my new Panasonic HVX200. The camera is way, way easier to use than my T2i and the picture seems to be a little richer and sharper.

The voting in this contest runs until January 1st and you can vote once a day. But even one vote would be lovely and much appreciated. Randstad got more than 360 entries for this contest which makes this contest sound totally un-winnable. But those numbers are deceptive. In fact, I entered this contest because the odds of me winning are actually pretty darn good! Randstad is giving out a bunch of prizes in two categories; Entries by Students and Entries by Professionals. When I found this contest I realized that most of the entries were made by students. And I also noticed that a whole lot of the “professional” videos were shot in the same location. That means that someone working for the sponsor went out and shot a bunch of entries. That kind of stuff actually happens a lot in contests. It’s an easy and fair way for the company to get a ton of entries. But entries that the sponsor helped create never win contests like this. They’re just there to take up space and the people in the videos never actually try and get any votes.

So right now I’m in 25th place overall. And among Professional entries I think I’m in fifth. First place (for each category) is $5,000, an iPad and an extra $5,000 for the winner’s charity of choice. And 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th place in each category gets $1,000, an iPad and $1,000 for charity. So it’s a really awesome contest and I’m going to go all out to win this one. So please help me start the new year out on the right foot and vote for my entry. Thanks!

Guest Post: Watch Out, It’s Dot TV

Posted by Guest Author on December 16th, 2011

What is "Dot TV"? I actually have no idea

Beardy’s Note: For the first time ever, VCN is presenting a guest post that was written by an author who would prefer to remain anonymous. Here’s how this article came to be: A few weeks ago I got an e-mail from a filmmaker and long-time reader of VCN that was having problem’s with .tv’s “Watch Dot TV” video contest. The filmmaker had made the finals in the contest and he had a shot at winning the $10,000 grand prize. The winner of of the contest was supposed to be determined by facebook votes. But right away, the voting seemed pretty fishy. I’ll let our anonymous author tell the rest of the story but as you can probably guess, it doesn’t end well. Initially I planned to do an article about this debacle myself but I knew the filmmaker could tell his own story better than I ever could. This contest got pretty ugly and the filmmaker got screwed by the sponsors pretty badly so I suggested that we run this article without revealing the filmmaker’s name.

———————–

In the wild west of online video contests, Watch Dot TV, a part of the large Verisign corporation, has set a new low in taking advantage of its contestants. In October they solicited entries and their judges chose the top 10 videos who competed for public votes. First Prize was $10,000, Second Prize was a Canon 7Dand Third Prize was a Panasonic GH2.

The voting in this contest ended more than a month ago and Dot TV is now over a week late announcing the winners. They have not issued a single statement despite the plethora of agitated comments on their . Watch Dot Tv’s continued silence is the loudest admission of guilt they could make. They even went so far as to delete people’s comments on their wall demanding accountability.

So what happened?

During the voting, each Facebook user was allowed one vote per day and after 4 days the top two entries had around 500 votes. Within hours the top two increased their lead on the third place by almost double what it took them days to accumulate. After this anomaly I discovered how the top two entries had gotten a huge lead: They exploited an error in the voting system that allowed for more than one vote a day.

Simply opening the voting page in a new tab, or even refreshing the page would allow for multiple votes. I immediately emailed the contest administrator to make them aware of the voting system error and that it has already been taken advantage of by the top two entries.

They responded and said they could not recreate this simple error on their own.

This was the major red flag. I was not trying to explain the error to an Amish craftsman, this was an internet company that could not open their own Facebook page in a new tab and recreate the error.

The two entries had already gained an insurmountable lead and the contest administrator was turning a blind eye. My fear was that they would find and fix the error I made them aware of and then deny it ever existed, meanwhile the two entries would continue to win, and Watch Dot TV would have averted a PR headache.

That’s when I decided to expose the error by voting repeatedly so it could not be ignored and brushed under the rug. As soon as I gained a lead on two winning entries, within minutes, they began exploiting the error to regain their lead. I called in reinforcements to gain such a lead that the two entries would give up, be exposed as exploiting the error, and Watch Dot TV would have to restart the competition. I did gain a 1,000 vote lead and the two entries did stop trying to keep up, so now it was just up to Watch Dot TV to fix the error and restart the competition.

Watch Dot TV’s solution was to reset the number of votes to a previous point in time that the two entries had already gained their lead by exploiting the error. When I commented on Watch Dot TV’s Facebook wall that they did not reset the votes to a point in time before the error occurred, they deleted my comment. Red flag number two.

Dot TV's facebook announcement

I continued to email them the timestamped screenshots I had taken when I exposed the voting error and asked them to address their mistake. There was only a few days left of voting for Watch Dot TV to fix this.

Watch Dot TV didn’t enjoy being called to account. After my pleas in emails and on their Facebook wall to restart the voting, they disqualified me and another entry from the contest. (Beardy’s Note: For some mysterious reason, the sponsors did not disqualify the two original elleged cheaters. It seems they only disqualified people who tried to beat those two contestants at their own game.) The entry in first place remained in that position until the end of the voting period. He was even promising to donate 25% of the prize to the Invisible Children organization in an effort to gain more votes.

There were even people on his facebook wall claiming they were using multiple accounts to vote for his entry. His video also violated the contest’s Official Rules and should have never been chosen as a finalist. His entire video was created by using previously published work, a direct violation of the rules.

I have never seen such disrespectful behavior by a company towards people from which it solicited video entries.

To this day the winner has not been announced and Watch Dot Tv has not issued any statements. (Beardy’s Note: The entire contest and all the entries have actually been removed from Dot TV’s facebook page) My only hope is that if they did give the prize money to entry that remained in first, despite having exploited the voting error and violating the official rules, maybe 100% of his prize found its way to the Invisible Children organization.

Watch Dot TV should be ashamed of the unprofessional manner in which it operated the contest and its parent company Verisign should exercise it’s parental responsibilities and put its misbehaved child in permanent timeout.

— Written by: Anonymous. To learn more about the Invisible Children fund, head here —

Coming Soon: VCN’s list of the best Crash the Super Bowl entries

Posted by Dan L. on December 15th, 2011

Man, it turns out that watching 5,000 thirty-second videos takes a hell of a long time! I was hoping to post our list of the best 2012 Crash the Super Bowl entries this week but I’m way behind on my viewing. So watch for the list to appear on December 20th.

And one quick note; a lot of people have been asking me the same question: Do views and comments matter? The answer is NO….no they don’t matter one bit in the Crash the Super Bowl contest. Your video can have 50,000 views and tons of “This video is guaranteed to be in the finals!” comments and it won’t help you one bit. In fact, the judges aren’t allowed to see any comments or view counts. They don’t even watch the entries on the public Crash the Superbowl website. So if you’re one of those A-holes who has been leaving disparaging comments on other videos because you think it will help your chances or if you’re one of those over-enthusiastic people who spams other videos with comments like, “Great work, be sure to check out my entry, Break-dancing Doritos Baby Falls Down a Flight of Stairs” then you’ve just been wasting your time. Actually, doing stuff like that is against the rules so it’s a good way to get yourself disqualified.

Interview with Pepsi Max Crash the Super Bowl finalist, Kyle Stafford

Posted by Dan L. on December 11th, 2011

Kyle battles a Doritos-loving kid in his 2012 Crash the Super Bowl entry, Switcheroo

When it was announced the Pepsi Max wasn’t going to be a part of this year’s Crash the Superbowl contest I was both disappointed and relived; disappointed because that meant there would be only 5 finalist slots instead of 10 and relived because the folks at Pepsi simply did not seem to get this contest. The people at Doritos who created and run “The Crash” have spent years building up the reputation of this mega-contest and in one season, the Pepsi Max team came in and did serious damage to the CTSB “brand.”

Pepsi Max hurt the contest in a few ways but it all comes down to which videos they picked for the Top 5. When the 2010/2011 contest was announced, the Pepsi team kept pushing the idea that Pepsi Max was a “manly” diet drink. And so, hundreds of filmmakers shot ads that were aimed at selling Pepsi Max to men. But somewhere along the way, Pepsi must have changed their marketing strategy for Pepsi Max. Because when they announced their finalists, 4 of the top 5 videos were clearly aimed at selling Pepsi Max to women. That upset quite a few people. But that was nothing compared to the backlash when fans actually watched Pepsi Max’s finalist choices. Two of them were embarrassingly bad and a third ad was very-expensive looking but it wasn’t especially funny. It aired during the big game and scored 24th on the USA Today Ad Meter…which I believe makes it the worst performing CTSB ad ever.

So Pepsi’s Top 5 were just not on par with the kind of ads that Doritos always picked. There were only two 2011 Pepsi Max Crash the Super Bowl finalists that I personally liked. One was “” and the other was this ad entitled, First Date:

One thing the Pepsi Judges did that kind of impressed me was that they weren’t afraid to pick ads that didn’t have high-end production values. (Of course, I think this strategy backfired in one or two cases) First Date doesn’t look super slick and it wasn’t shot with a $18,000 Red Camera. The thing it has going for it is great writing. It’s clever and interesting and it’s aimed at both women AND men. And best of all, it’s TRUE. People connect with this idea because they have probably been in situations like the one depicted in the video. First Date wound up airing during the Super Bowl and despite the fact that this ad only cost about $25 to make, it was ranked the #7 best ad of the night on the USA Today ad meter poll. It just goes to show you that good writing conquers all.

The man behind First Date is named Kyle Stafford and he plays “the guy” in the commercial. It turns out that Kyle is a fan of VCN and he graciously agreed to answer some questions about his Crash the Super Bowl experiences. And now, on with the interview:

VCN: So Kyle, tell us about yourself. Where are you from? What do you do for a living?

KYLE: I am from Northern California. A place called Rohnert Park, north of San Francisco. I graduated from UC Santa Barbara and came straight to LA to become a world famous writer/producer. Ten years later and I am now an Editor over at Warner Brothers. It’s actually not a bad gig, but I still write/produce on nights and weekends.. I am married and we have 2 sons. And they are actually all in this years CTSB commercial.

VCN:  Do you enter a lot of video contests?

KYLE: This year will be out 4th year entering the Crash contest. Last year we actually made 3 commercials, 2 for Pepsi Max and 1 for Doritos. But besides this contest, we don’t really enter other contests.

VCN:  Do you remember why you entered the contest last year?

KYLE: We actually were not going to enter last year, because we had entered the 2 previous years and thought we had pretty good entries and never got in, so we were all stubborn, like “screw it” we don’t need them. Then we came to our senses and realized we did need them and we ended up making 3 spots. We actually thought a different entry was going to be the finalist. A spot called Pepsi Wedding, which you had in your Top 30 list. So when they called and said it was for First Date we were all kind of shocked.

VCN:  Tell us about how you created First Date.

KYLE: A couple of friends and I have a comedy/skit website called GoodLookingLiars.com, so we had been making content on and off together for about 2 years when we decided to enter the contest again. We hadn’t really put any thought into the commercials since we were not going to enter anything, but then when we decided to enter, we had almost no time, so we had to act quick. I got the idea in LA traffic, during an especially awful stretch on the 405. I just remember it making me laugh, so I called Nick Simotas and Robby Wells right away and told them the idea and they both laughed. Then I called my wife and she said there was no way we could say that during the Super Bowl. That’s when I knew we were going to make it. The ad cost about 25 dollars to make. We got the restaurant for free, got friends to be extras and shot the whole thing in about an hour. It isn’t the most complex commercial in the world, with no production audio and really only 3 camera angles. The 25 dollars was just to buy frozen dinners to put food on the plates as well as a pack of gum so the whole cast and crew could partake in a good chew. The actress opposite me is Julia Bellows, she is a super funny friend of ours that we have used in a bunch of our stuff.

VCN:  How and when did you find out that you made the 2011 finals?

KYLE: The people at Pepsi called us about 3 or 4 days before they posted the results…. The only reason they tell you in advance is to make sure you have all the correct actor/location releases and paperwork before they go through the process of making you a finalist. I was actually at work when they called, and we were not allowed to tell anyone until they posted, so I had to sit at work the rest of the day with this huge dopey grin on my face and I couldn’t tell anyone why.

VCN:  Did Pepsi Max ask you to keep the news to yourself?  How did your friends and family react when they heard the news?

KYLE: Yeah, we were asked to keep the news under wraps until they posted the finalists. I think my friends and family thought I was kidding, most probably did until the second they saw it actually air during the game. Good thing my face was on it or nobody would have ever believed me.

VCN:  How was your trip to the Super Bowl?

KYLE: Trip to the Super Bowl was amazing, we got to sit in a luxury box at the 40 yard line with catering and free booze. Dallas was freezing though, Pepsi had actually planned a bunch of cool events and parties to go to, but we had to cancel a good amount because it was really hard to get around, but we got to go to the Pepsi Jam concert thing with Kid Rock and Duran Duran. So the whole trip was pretty surreal, being whisked away to events and having VIP passes. Usually I am working catering at those things, so it was cool to sit back and enjoy it all.

VCN:  Your commercial wound up playing very late in the game.  How did it feel when it finally ran?

KYLE: Yeah, they don’t tell you if you’re going to air until you see it on the TV, so every commercial break is pretty intense. They aired 5 of the 6 ads in the first quarter, so only one ad was going to air the rest of the game, so then we had to sit through every commercial break until about the middle of the 4th quarter. They actually ended up airing our ad on the Dallas Stadium jumbo-tron, which is the biggest jumbo-tron in the world I think, so my already giant head was spread out over a 60 yard TV. We actually thought at that point our ad was not going to air on TV, thinking the Jumbo-tron was a consolation prize or something. But then the time came and it aired and Nick and I freaked out and hugged, it was a pretty cool moment. I think Nick had a roll of quarters in his pocket.

VCN:  First Date did amazingly well on the ad meter.  In came in 7^th.  Did you expect to rank so high?  Even though you didn’t “land in the money” were you happy with how your commercial performed?

KYLE: The ad did a lot better then we thought it would. We didn’t expect it to rank so high, but I think in the sea of slick over-produced ads, I think we were kind of novel in that our ad was so insanely simple and true. The biggest thing we kept hearing was how true our ad was and I think people were laughing at the truth of the guy/girl thing. It’s funny, landing in the money was never even a thought for us, we just wanted it to air, then when we saw we came so close, you start thinking “Damn! We almost got like 400 grand.” and you start to get bummed, but then we shook ourselves and remembered we were at the Superbowl and had an ad that we created that just aired in front of 110 million people and we perked up. And Nick said he had a roll of dimes now.

VCN:  Were you surprised that Pepsi Max wasn’t part of the Crash the Super Bowl contest this year?

KYLE: Yeah I was surprised, if you look back at last year, Pepsi had 2 of the top 7 ads on the Ad Meter. If you were a real ad agency and you could point to those kind of results they would be getting bonuses, but I am sure the people at Pepsi Max know a little more than I do about soda marketing, so I am sure they have their reasons. But it sucks having the finalists basically cut into half. Makes it that much harder to win.

VCN:  How did making the CTSB finals change your life?

KYLE: Being a finalist in CTSB was a super cool experience, but I wouldn’t say it has changed my life. It is a really nice story to tell and legitimizes us a little with Hollywood producer types, but nobody is knocking down our door for all our content. I got recognized a little right afterward, a few people asked me if I was that guy on TV or I would be at the store and you would see someone staring at me like they knew me from somewhere but couldn’t quite figure out from where. I had a kid want a picture with me at the game. I told him “When you go back through these pictures you are gonna be like ‘Who the hell is this guy in my photo album?”

VCN: Did you enter the contest again this year?

Yeah, we entered in again this year. I included my whole family in this year’s ad. You can tell we broke the bank again on this ad. This one actually didn’t cost anything:

http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/#/gallery?video=13134

Thanks for your site and good luck to all the entrants. Keep making stuff!!!!

VCN: And thank you for your time. Good Luck this year!