Wow, where did January go?? Voting is now over in Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl contest. The contest site has been keeping track of the voting and it looks like just under half a million votes were cast! There were only five finalists so (obviously) that’s about 100,000 votes per video. With numbers like that, you have to wonder if an individual finalist’s efforts to get people to vote for them are just a waste of time. Think about it; let’s say you have a social network of 300 people. Even if every one of those people voted for you every day for 30 days that would only equal 9,000 votes. But unlike most video contests, people vote in the CTSB contest because Fritolay gives out big cash prizes to random voters….not because they know one of the finalists. So this may be the only video contest in history where “the public” really does pick the winner. Despite the big numbers, the 2012 finalists still campaigned like crazy. Last week a reader name Chad e-mailed me about something funny he saw on TV that morning. Here’s what he said:
I was watching the Today Show this morning and they were interviewing Michelle Williams when my mouth dropped to the floor. Just look in the background of the photo I attached to see what I mean. And no, there was nothing on the show program today that even mentions CTSB.
And here’s the photo he sent me:
Screen shot of the Today Show
Sling Baby is of course one of the five Crash the Super Bowl finalists. That stunt was funny but I’m not sure that type of thing will generate a lot of votes. So anyway, who will win? Damned if I know. But I’m predicting HOT WILD GIRLS will wind up receiving the most votes. Why? Because its title is “Hot Wild Girls!!” Imagine you were a random guy who didn’t enter the CTSB contest. But you saw an ad online and you decided to to cast a quick vote so you could have a shot at winning one of the Voter Prizes. Which of these 5 ads would you want to click on?
Just from the titles and the thumbnails you can tell that two commercials are about dogs and one is about a baby. “Bird of Prey” just looks like it’s about some guys in an office. So I think most people (both men and women) would click on Hot Wild Girls just out of curiosity. And if you don’t care much about who wins, you’re just going to vote for the first video you watch.
Final predictions: Doritos is scheduled to air 2 commercials on Sunday but I bet they’ll air three. I think Hot Wild Girls will get the most votes and I think Fritolay’s picks will be Bird of Prey and Man’s Best friend. That’s a nice mix; you get one ad about a hilariously giant dog, you get one about a crazy bird man and you get one that’s about technology….and rottweilers. The other two ads, Sling Baby and Dog Park are getting crushed in the unofficial view count race on the CTSB . So I think Doritos will have to go with the most popular, most exciting ads. But I don’t think any CTSB ads are going to land in the Top 3 on the USA Today ad meter. A lot of this year’s Superbowl ads have already been made public and the competition is looking very, very tough. Seriously….have you seen Volkswagen’s official Super Bowl commercial?? Holy shit! Not only does it have a dog, it has Hammerhead and Ponda Baba from the original star wars! If you haven’t seen it, to check it out. And man, don’t even get me started on that Ferris Bueller ad. If a CTSB entry lands in the Top 3 this year it will really be an amazing accomplishment.
Quick Note: We’ve got a big post in the works so check back tomorrow for some very interesting inside information about the Crash the Super Bowl contest. Quick Update: Actually, I’m going to wait to post that story until after the Super Bowl. More details coming soon!
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If you search the finalists in the Doritos CTSB gallery, it still tracks their total views:
Sling Baby: 440k
/#/gallery?video=13253
Hot Wild Girls: 385k
/#/gallery?video=14867
Bird of Prey: 381k
/#/gallery?video=12461
Man’s Best Friend: 374k
/#/gallery?video=10925
Dog Park: 342k
/#/gallery?video=16959
While views aren’t votes I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a better indicator, youtube views included. If there’s 3 going in it looks like Sling Baby (views), Hot Wild Girls (Buzz/Doritos selection) and a toss up between Man’s Best Friend and Bird of Prey (3rd “surprise” commercial).
Marissa,
Excellent detective work! I didn’t even know you could see the current finalist view counts if you looked them up in the video gallery.
If you add up all those numbers you get 1,922,000 views. Assuming 480,000 votes were cast that means that means only about 25% of views led to votes. So I’m not 100% sure that views on the CTSB site are a good indicator of votes. Plus, it looks like it’s very easy to fake views on the CTSB site. But it’s nearly impossible to fake views on Doritos’ youtube channel. A savvy finalist may set their browser to “reload and refresh” their CTSB entry so that it gets tons of views and looks more popular. (As long as they aren’t faking votes, it wouldn’t be against the rules.) So even if a team loses the vote, maybe then doritos would decide to air the ad that seemed to be the most popular. I’m not saying anyone did that. It’s just a possible explanation for why “Sling Baby” is the least viewed CTSB entry on youtube but the most viewed CTSB entry on the contest site.
Thanks for the compliment Beardy!
But I’m going to respectfully disagree with you. I think Youtube views are more unreliable because of what Youtube decides to suggest to their users to view. There are no big algorithms on the CTSB stie. Plus I don’t understand how it’s easier to fake CTSB views rather than youtube views. Couldn’t someone also set their browser to reload/refresh the youtube page? Even so views aren’t votes, but I think views on the actual voting platform carry more weight. Youtube is just a destination to be entertained and while they have links to vote other places most people will watch the video and be done with it.
And for extra credit (can’t a sorority girl try?) you can see number or likes and shares of the video on the doritos video page too. Seems to reflect the CTSB rankings more than youtube:
Marissa, you get an A+. Thanks for the info!
“Sling Baby” was neck and neck in views in the Gallery until they came out with the video game, then they separated from the pack and apparently 1/3 of their votes came from the video game: http://armorgames.com/play/12785/sling-baby. Each team was given $20,000 for marketing but only one team paid for a game.