2013 January | Video Contest News - Featuring News about Video Contests!

Did a poorly-designed Facebook app almost ruin this year’s Crash the Super Bowl contest?

Posted by Dan L. on January 29th, 2013

Facebook: Ruining every nice thing on the Internet since 2004

Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl contest might just be the biggest and most successful promotion in the history of advertising. There have been seven different installments of The Crash and until now, each one has been bigger and better than the last. But this year something strange happened; for the first time ever the Crash saw a drop in the number of ads that were submitted. Doritos received about 2,800 entries last fall and although that’s an amazing figure, in 2011 the company received more than 6,000 entries. The terms of the contest changed very little and there is still a million dollars at stake…so what could have caused a 50% drop in the number of videos that were submitted? What the heck happened to this year’s Crash the Super Bowl contest!?

Facebook. Facebook is what happened.

The first six installments of The Crash were all hosted on the dedicated website, Crashthesuperbowl.com. The site was brilliantly designed and it was the perfect home for the contest. It was fun, user-friendly and it always worked just the way it was supposed to. Crashthesuperbowl.com became an important part of the contest and I think it really helped generate a lot of excitement among the fans. There was a huge and pretty active forum that filmmakers could use to ask questions so it felt very live and interactive. The site also had some nice privacy protections. If you wanted to upload an entry or rate or comment on other people’s submissions you had to create a username and register an account. Your profile and contact info were hidden from the public so no one knew who the heck ChipMonster23 or OrangeDustAddict were in he real world. This did lead to a little trolling but a few rotten apples posting dumb comments on popular videos didn’t do much harm.

By far the the greatest feature of the old Crashthesuperbowl.com was the site’s video gallery. IT WAS PHENOMENAL. When you went to the gallery you would see thumbnails for about 200 entries. If you scrolled left or right, more thumbnails would automatically load. So even if there were 6,000 submissions, you could scan through all of them by just pushing your cursor to the right. Here’s what the old gallery looked like:

RIP: Crashthesuperbowl.com

I think this video gallery was one of the biggest reasons the contest got so huge. FritoLay made it incredibly easy for users to watch lots and lots of entries. You could skim though the gallery and click on any random video that caught your eye. So people who were thinking about entering the contest could sit down and check out the competition with ease. And here’s the thing about the Crash the Super Bowl contest; maybe 90% of the entries are pretty terrible! I know that might sound harsh but it’s true. The vast majority of submissions are made by amateur filmmakers who don’t really understand how to craft a tight, funny, clever, 30 second commercial. So if you were thinking of entering and if you watched a few dozen (or a few hundred) entries you would catch on to this fact pretty quickly. And this would lead to a crucial realization: I CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT! The video gallery made it look like any half-decent ad that didn’t have any glaring technical problems would be a serious contender. And that perception probably inspired thousands of filmmakers to go out and shoot their own submissions.

So Crashthesuperbowl.com was awesome. But it did lack one key feature; it wasn’t very SOCIAL. All of those ratings and comments and shares were TRAPPED inside the Crash the Super Bowl website. So I’m guessing that some very clever person at FritoLay or Goodby, Silverstein & partners (that ad agency that helps run the Crash) realized that if the contest was moved to Facebook, literally MILLIONS of people would be exposed to activty related to the contest.

And that’s how everything got all f#&%ed up. Last fall FritoLay decided that it was time to cash in on all those ratings and uploads and comments so they mothballed their amazing website and turned their entire multimillion dollar ad contest into a lousy facebook app. Suddenly the contest went from being a fun, user-friendly experience to a big ass annoying, privacy killing social media monstrosity. I want you to scroll up and look at that screen grab of the old CTSB video gallery. Then scroll down and look at the new FACEBOOK video gallery:

The CTSB Facebook app

See that WATCH MORE ADS button? I think that little button nearly ruined the 2013 Crash the Super Bowl contest. On the old site you could skim through hundreds of ads in a matter of seconds. But the new facebook app would only show you 12 ENTRIES AT A TIME. If you wanted to see more thumbnails you had to click the button and wait a few seconds(!) for 12 more to load. It was incredibly annoying. Every year I try and watch as many Crash the Super Bowl entries as possible. I used to go though the gallery and click on any ad that happened to catch my eye. But not this year. This year I tried to watch some entries but I quickly got frustrated and gave up. And you know what? Not being able to watch tons of other entries totally killed my enthusiasm for this contest. I tried shooting a submission of my own but when I ran into a problem I just said “screw it” and gave up. I just didn’t care this year and I know it’s because I wasn’t able to get psyched up and inspired by other people’s entries.

But the crappy video gallery wasn’t the app’s only problem. The Crash the Super Bowl app was also a vicious privacy killer. In fact, it might be the most invasive and dangerous contest app I’ve ever seen. Contestants had to submit their entries under their real names and their names would automatically appear next to their videos. Those names were clickable and they linked to the director’s facebook page. So if you had a popular video, a million strangers could easily see anything you had ever publicly posted on facebook. Oh and guess what, if you listed the names of your crew members their names would also appear next to your video and their names were clickable too. Here, check out this shot of one the 5 finalist ads:

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Every one of the names under the comment box is clickable. Out of the 925,970 people that have watched this video, I wonder how many of them clicked on those links just for the hell of it. I looked at one of the producer’s profiles and in 60 seconds I knew where she lives, what she looks like, where she works, where she went to school, who her boyfriend is, and how old she is. It’s absurd that contestants and their crew members have to be exposed like this. But the contestants aren’t the only one’s who need to worry. You can also check out the facebook page of anyone who comments on any entry. Most of the finalists and their crew probably realized that they should set their facebook pages to ultra-private mode but do all these people who have been leaving comments know that hundreds of thousands of strangers can see their personal info in just one click?

But wait, there’s more! I haven’t even gotten to the WORST thing about this app; it is just a gigantic, spam-spewing monster! Every single time a facebook user votes for an entry or leaves a comment, a message like this pops up in their friends’ news feeds:

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I took this screenshot after I voted for a friend’s entry in the Nacho Average Awards phase of the contest. (If you’re not familiar with “The Nachos” they were kind of an honorable mention prize and the filmmakers that got the most vote won a year’s supply of Doritos.) I voted for that entry every day and every freaking day my friends would have to see that alert. The same thing happens when you vote for a finalist commercial. I’ve been voting for the finalist “Goat 4 Sale” all month. Here’s what would appear on my timeline every time I voted:

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I’ve used a lot of contest apps before and normally I would just delete that piece of activity and the post would disappear. But deleting that post doesn’t actually remove it from your news feed. So for days I thought I was removing the post but my friends were still seeing it. When I accepted the app it actually asked “Who can see posts this app makes on your facebook timeline?“ I thought I selected the “ONLY ME” option but when I checked later it was set to “FRIENDS.” I don’t know if I just screwed up or if something was wrong with the app but I’ll tell you this, whenever I accept an app I ALWAYS set it to “ONLY ME.” But really, isn’t it dumb that I even have to care about this kind of stuff? Can’t I just cast a vote and be on my way? Isn’t enough that I’m voluntarily watching a commercial? Does FritoLay really need to commercialize my commercial-watching?

I know that PR teams and ad agencies are being told that they need to “make things more social” by big wigs who have no idea what that actually means. But how does any of this junk actually help sell Doritos? Does anyone at FritoLay really believe that my Uncle Tony is going to go out and buy a bag of Cool Ranch chips because he saw a brief mention of Doritos in his facebook news feed? I mean seriously…..the Crash the Super Bowl ads that win this contest are going to be broadcast during the Super Bowl which means they’ll be seen by 100 million people. Isn’t that enough exposure?? Does FritoLay really need to shove their content into the eyeballs of my 262 facebook friends?

That daily dose of spam was really annoying and if I wasn’t a giant video contest nerd I wouldn’t have wasted my time changing the app’s settings. I just would have stopped voting after a day or two. So I think the contest’s crappy facebook app hurt the number of entries that were received this year and it also probably reduced the number of votes that were cast. I really hope that the Crash the Super Bowl contest comes back next year but I also hope that the folks at FritoLay realize that a bunch of meaningless “likes” and “shares” aren’t worth the damage they’re doing to their brand. Moving The Crash the Facebook made the biggest user-generated ad contest in history feel small….and that’s a damn shame.

How to spot fake youtube views

Posted by Dan L. on January 25th, 2013

15,000 views for $5?? What a deal!

If you poke around the microjob website Fiverr.com you’ll discover that you can have thousands and thousands of “views” delivered to the youtube video of your choosing for just a few bucks. But don’t get excited; you can’t just buy youtube super stardom. When you order one of these gigs you’re actually buying hits that are disguised to look like views. So 15,000 real people will NOT be watching your video. Your view count is simply going to get inflated by 15,000. Some of these bogus views are generated by bots but in many cases hackers will secretly embed a video on a popular web page. Every time someone accesses that page the video automatically plays….albeit silently and invisibly.

Fake views are really starting to have a big impact on the way youtube works. Google’s adsense program is getting scammed out of lots of money and lame, wannabe Internet stars are wrecking the site’s integrity by purchasing phoney viral success. It seems like the folks at youtube are finally fed up and they’re now cracking down on users who buy fake views. A few weeks ago youtube actually removed more than 2 billion fake views from lots of big name companies and they even shut down the channels of some of the more egregious offenders.

It’s easy for youtube’s engineers to spot fake views since they can see data that the general public doesn’t have access to. But what about the rest of us? A lot of video contests use youtube views as part of an entry’s score. How can you tell if a contestant is cheating by ordering fake views?

Unfortunately you can’t….at least not for sure. But these scammers leave a lot of clues so it’s easy to spot views that are probably fake. Let’s take a look at a youtube video from a channel that hosts close to 300 self-help/get rich quick videos. It’s is run by some dude who wants to teach you how to apply martial arts lessons to the world of real estate….or something like that. Yes I’m being serious.

Note: I edited this screenshot so that the comment count would be visible.

WOWEE! 2.1 million youtube views! That guy is gonna be the next PSY! Or maybe not. Maybe he’s a con artist who bought millions of fake youtube views because he wants to make it look like he’s popular so that suckers buy his book or send him donations. I’m not saying that’s the case….I’m just saying MAYBE that’s what’s happening here. Why do I think that some of those 2.1 million views might be fake? Here’s a quick run down of all the red flags I see in this screenshot:

1. The view count is suspiciously high: You should always be suspicious when you come across a video that has an inexplicably high view count. Regular youtube users understand what types of videos get a lot of views and this particular video just doesn’t feel like it should be popular. Would 2.1 million people really watch a 9 minute long get-rich-quick video?

2. The channel has a relatively low number of subscribers: 10,994 subscribers might sound like a lot but that’s a ridiculously small number for anyone who is getting hundreds of thousands or even millions of views on most of their videos. Here, check out the stats for a GOOD youtube channel; . The FCK (heh) gets about a million views for each of his videos. But unlike the real estate guy he has more than 220,000 subscribers. Those are numbers that actually make sense.

3. The video only has 2,254 likes: Guess what? You can buy likes and comments on fiverr too. But those are way more expensive than views. So people who buy fake views sometimes don’t even bother ordering fake likes and comments. Consequently the stats for those videos are totally lopsided. It’s just not realistic that only 1/10th of 1% of the people who watch a youtube video will click the thumbs up or thumbs down button.

4. The video only has 20 dislikes: Few scammers are going to be smart enough to order DISLIKES. Two million views and only 20 dislikes just scream fraud to me. If millions of people had actually watched this video a few thousand of them would have clicked the thumbs-down button. That’s just how things work on youtube.

4. The video only has 489 comments: This number also doesn’t jive with the view count. Once again, let’s use the Final Cut King as an example. Here’s that has received 2.5 million views. It has close to 6,000 comments (and over 30,000 likes/dislikes.) Comments are REALLY hard to fake since each comment needs to come from a different account and the comments need to be spread out over days and weeks to look realistic.

So the basic stats here seem pretty fishy. Let’s drill down a little deeper into this video’s data to see what else we can discover. If you look under a video’s view count you’ll see some symbols. If you click that symbol that looks like a bar graph a bunch extra stats will pop up.

Click that thingy to see more statistics

If you click on the stats button for the get-rich-quick real estate video, this is what you’ll see. The arrow indicates the one gigantic red flag I spotted.

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Now we’re getting into the really good stuff. This data shows us where all of those 2.1 million views actually came from. It used to be that if someone ordered fake views you could tell right away because the referrer sites would all be pages like buycheapviews.com or whatever. But the view-sellers have gotten smarter and they’ve figured out ways to mask the origin of their bogus views. And the number one way they do that is by tricking youtube into thinking the views came from a “mobile device.” Does it really seem possible that 70% of the 2.1 million people who watched this video watched it on their their iPhone?? That’s just ridiculous. And the facebook and Twitter numbers are almost certainly fake too. View sellers like to embed their videos on those sites because it seems natural that a lot of views would come from popular social media sites. If this video does have fake views, the video was probably also secretly embedded on all the other sites listed. After all, how the hell can you get thousands of views from a youtube video that’s been posted on iTunes or LastFM!? The data that you don’t see here is also suspicious. If this video really had gone viral you’d see referrals from specific blog posts or news stories that featured the video. And if the channel has any real subscribers, you would also see lots of views listed under “referral from a subscriber module.”

Let’s take a look at the traffic stats for a different video. In 2011 I was in a video contest where the finalists were determined by youtube view counts. This contest turned into a total clusterf*ck and people cheated like crazy. I didn’t know what was going on but after doing some research I quickly discovered that anyone could simply order youtube likes, comments, subscribers and views. These are the stats from one of the cheaters who made the finals.

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Check out the item that’s 2nd to last in that list. 2/3rds of this video’s views came from the website Viralzoo.com. What the heck is viralzoo.com?? If you ever see a weird website listed in the stats, check it out. In this case, Viralzoo.com is just a bogus page that’s used as a front for view-fakers.

There’s another piece of very important data in this image. Look closely at that blue graph….

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This graph shows how quickly the video got its views. You can see that the view count suddenly skyrocketed after the video was posted to those referral sites. All those referral happened BEFORE the video became popular and zero new referrals happened after it got all those views. That means that nobody liked the video enough to share it ANYWHERE on the entire Internet. And that big plateau means that the view count has basically remained the same for a year and a half. So from this data we can tell that the video was posted to a few different websites all at once. Then the video gained almost all of it’s 49,000 views over a few days but then suddenly the video somehow went un-viral and pretty much nobody every watched it again.

So….you can find out some pretty amazing stuff if you check the public stats data of a youtube video. Unfortunately youtube lets userrs turn that option off and most people who buy fake views are smart enough to hide their referrals. But turning off the public stats is a pretty big red flag in and of itself. This is what you’ll see if a user wants to hide their referral data:

50,000 views + 27 likes + no public referral stats = a bogus view count

If you’re ever in a video contest where youtube views matter you should tell the judges that they should ask all the contestants to leave their Public Statistics data ON. There is no legitimate reason for a contestant to hide the source of their views.

Here are a few other tips for spotting fake youtube views:

1. Check the youtube channel of the person who posted the video. Many youtube users will post links to their facebook pages, blogs or twitter accounts on their youtube channel. You can check these sites to see if the person is genuinely popular. If a video’s stats say that 50,000 views came from twitter then the creator of that video should conceivably have a pretty massive twitter following.

2. Keep an eye on the number of likes and comments. If a video gains 30,000 views in one day but receives zero new comments or just a few likes you know something shady is going on. Popular videos always get a steady stream of likes and comments. If a “popular” video isn’t getting any comments it means that real humans aren’t actually watching it.

3. Read through the comments and look for anything hinky. A lot of the people who sell views, likes and comments live in foreign countries like India. So fake comments sometimes don’t make sense or are done in broken english.

4. Check out the channels of some of the people who have left comments. If you look at their activity feed you might notice that they have been doing tons and tons of really spammy stuff like commenting on dozens of get-rich-quick videos or liking every music video created by one random aspiring hip hop artist.

And finally, I’ve saved my best tip for last: Just stay away from video contests where youtube view counts or likes help determine who the winners are. Like I said, there is no way anyone outside of youtube can be 100% sure that a video has fake views so cheaters will always win view count races. Sure, you could try and contact the judges and tell them how easy it is to buy youtube views but they probably won’t give a damn. If they actually cared about running a fair video contest they wouldn’t have run the thing on youtube in the first place.

VCN interview with Ben Callner, Crash the Super Bowl finalist and creator of “Goat 4 Sale”

Posted by Dan L. on January 21st, 2013

2013 Crash the Super Bowl finalist, Goat 4 Sale

You’d think that after 7 installments the Crash the Super Bowl contest would start to feel a little stale. But this year Doritos managed to pick an ad for the finals that just happens to be the funniest Crash the Super bowl entry ever. is simply a PERFECT commercial and viewers on the web have already fallen in love with it. The ad has been getting a ton of praise in the media and it’s also walloping all the other finalists in the unofficial view count race on facebook. (More views means more votes.) So it seems very, very likely that this ad is going straight to the super bowl and if it does air I think it’s going to score the number one spot on the USA Today ad meter in a walk. And if that happens, the ad’s director Ben Callner will win a million dollar bonus from FritoLay plus Michael Bay will offer him a sweet job on the new Transformers movie. So who is Ben Callner? Let’s find out! Ben was good enough to give VCN some of his time and answer a few questions about his quest to get to the Super Bowl.

VCN: So Ben, tell me about yourself. Where are you from? How old are you? What do you do for a living?

BEN: I’m 28 years old and from Marietta, GA – a suburb of Atlanta. I went to Georgia Tech, where I graduated with a degree in Science, Technology, and Culture… It’s sort of a degree in sociology with an emphasis on, well, science and technology.

During college, I was fortunate enough to get an internship at an Atlanta production company called Pogo Pictures.

One slower day, I showed the owner (and my eventual mentor, Steve Colby) some silly short films I had made with college buddies for a student film festival called Campus Movie Fest. He didn’t seem impressed. But when I graduated, I got a call from Steve asking if I could help him start an online division of Pogo.

From there, a friendship formed. And eventually, even though I wasn’t on salary, I sort of just kept showing up and throwing out ideas. One day my persistence wore off on him and he took me under his wing… He continues to joke that he didn’t really have a choice.

After 6 or so years of working in the local film industry (mostly as a production assistant with the occasional job as a camera operator) and with the mentoring of Steve and the ever-useful advice of my brother and uncle (both producers), I’m currently fortunate enough to say that I am a freelance commercial director in the Atlanta area.

And luckily, thanks to family and friends and a girlfriend who loves to stay in at night as much as I do, I’ve been able to keep my living expenses way down. It’s an incredibly competitive industry, and I honestly don’t think I could continue to “chase the dream” if it weren’t for the generosity and understanding of both my family and my girlfriend’s family… Heck, I live in the basement of my girlfriend’s parent’s house, and they actually genuinely like that I’m there! Have you ever heard of such a thing?

VCN: Have you ever entered the Crash the Super Bowl contest before?

BEN: I entered a couple of years ago. It was about a guy who returns home to his apartment and finds three masked burglars robbing his apartment. After a brief stare down, the homeowner suddenly screams and in a desperate attempt to silence the victim, one of the robbers shoves a Dorito in his mouth. At which point, the homeowner suddenly forgets what’s happening and chews happily.

Ha! I just realized that both entries have a scream in it… I must think high-pitched screams are really funny. Who knew?

VCN: Have you ever entered any other video contests before?

I competed a long time ago for a Verizon VCast competition (I can’t remember the name of it exactly), and also an Aquafresh commercial contest. I didn’t have much success with either of those but they were a lot of fun.

The last competition I entered was the Georgia Lottery Powerball commercial contest, which I actually won! That was sort of what motivated Pogo to finally take me in off the streets.

VCN: Where did the idea for Goat 4 Sale come from?

BEN: Steve came in one day and said something like, “You know my goat eating food and crunching is really funny.” And then he just left. Steve is a quirky guy (heck, he has goats and he lives in the city), so when he said this, I didn’t think too much of it. But then he said it again and again and finally followed it with, “We should make a Doritos commercial.” It was seriously as direct as that.

I wasn’t sure how “funny” his goats could actually be so we Googled “goats eating chips” and “goats screaming” and couldn’t stop laughing. And then after an uncountable amount of bad ideas, it all eventually clicked into place during one all-night writing session. My girlfriend actually jokes that she went to bed and nothing was done, and then when she woke up, it was pretty much all laid out.

But without a doubt, I would have never thought of using a goat (or even competing in the contest) if Steve hadn’t have said, “My goats eating and crunching is really funny… We should do a Doritos commercial.”

VCN: How was the ad created?

BEN: We shot it on the Canon 5D Mark III, and it was pretty much all local crew that volunteered their time. The support was unbelievable!

My mom and dad were on set as well. My mom serving as “script supervisor” and my dad as “craft services.” They do that a lot, and I absolutely love it!

I storyboarded the script and made an animatic, just to make sure we could tell everything in 30 seconds. It was a really bad animatic but it helped.

Moose (the goat) was pretty crazy at first. But it became apparent that Moose was sort of mimicking our behavior. So if everyone was nervous and running around and people were stressed and really trying to make the shot work, it wouldn’t. But if we went to Moose and just petted him, and everyone settled in, and we sort of channeled our inner hippie, it seemed to work. That sounds silly but it really was true.

And one of our most valuable tools was Kudzu, Moose’s goat brother. We used Kudzu a ton off-camera to help with Moose’s eye line, and even the screaming scene. For that, we put Kudzu on a sturdy shelf behind camera and essentially just let the two “talk” to one another.

But just in case Moose wouldn’t cooperate, before the shoot day we came up with “backup plans.” For instance, for the scream shot, if Moose didn’t scream or open his mouth to the point where we could dub in a scream, we were going to simply snap zoom in on his face. I figured in sound design that could still seem “vengeful.” Thank goodness it didn’t come to that.

VCN: I saw that the budget for your entry was $5,000. Is that right? What did you spend your money on? Did you put up the money yourself or did you have investors?

BEN: It’s crazy how fast everything adds up, even when asking for favors. Luckily, Pogo Pictures believed in the concept and agreed to provide a budget.

I cashed in on favors and Pogo utilized relationships with local crew and post-production houses.

All that said, we spent most of our money on Doritos (150 bags), some equipment (we were able to get a TON donated), food/craft services, and spec rates for our 15 person crew (including my parents).

Ben visits Doritos’ PR HQ in LA

VCN: How and when did you find out that you made the finals? Were you allowed to tell anyone the good news?

I found out in mid December.

I got a call from Doritos saying that their legal department needed to “talk.” They said they just wanted to make sure I was still in the running and asked if I could jump on a conference call later that afternoon. I was freaking out! I wasn’t sure what was the matter. Did we do something wrong? I called my brother. I called my uncle. I called Steve. We couldn’t figure it out.

Finally, the time came when the “legal team” was supposed to call me and nothing happened. I started freaking out even more! Why haven’t they called? It’s been two hours?

Then I got an email asking if I could jump on the call at 9pm. I agreed. When 9pm came around, a man called and asked for me.

I said, “This is Ben” and then the man said, “This is Michael Bay.” I said, “No it’s not.”

Anyway, Doritos got me really good. I ended up repeating “Michael Bay” for way too much… so much so that I even apologized for saying his name so many times. He was really cool about it all.

It was a crazy experience to say the least!

VCN: All of the finalists had to head to Texas to do some PR stuff before the results were announce (that’s correct, right?) What was that trip like? Did you get to meet the other finalists?

BEN: That is correct. But instead of Texas I flew into LA, where Doritos’ PR company is located.

The trip was amazing! I literally couldn’t believe what was happening. I was, and still am, on some sort of adrenaline rush… I’m so excited I can’t sleep!

And I did get to meet the other finalists. Everybody is seriously so genuine and nice. Before meeting everybody, I was a little nervous that there might be some underlying tension. But luckily, there was none of that, just pure gratitude and elation.

VCN: What are you doing to try and get people to vote for Goat 4 Sale?

BEN: I’m honestly living on Facebook: “liking” every activity, friending whoever I can friend, and replying/sending messages like crazy. I broke a blood vessel in my left eye because I was staring at my monitor too intensely.

And the other night, I was responding so fast that Facebook literally told me to slow down. No joke, a window popped up telling me that if I didn’t slow down I would be kicked off. It thought I was an automated bot!

VCN: Who are you bringing to the super bowl?

BEN: My good friend and mentor, Steve Colby… not to mention co-writer/director, producer, and goat wrangler.

VCN: I have a feeling that Goat 4 Sale will easily be the most popular CTSB ad of the super bowl. If it is, would you take the job working with Michael Bay?

BEN: I honestly think that the opportunity to work with Michael Bay would be an unforgettable experience!

VCN: Thanks for your time Ben and good luck!

Remember folks, you can vote for Goat 4 Sale every day until January 29th. Voting is done via facebook so if you have a facebook page you don’t even have to register an account. Every time a Doritos ad wins the USA Today Ad Meter it pretty much guarantees that FritoLay will bring The Crash back again in the fall. So you should vote for the commercial that has the best chance of winning the ad meter! To vote, Goat 4 Sale, head here:

How much did the 2013 finalists spend on their Crash the Super Bowl entries?

Posted by Dan L. on January 16th, 2013

FritoLay gets a crazy amount of free publicity from the Crash the Super Bowl contest because the media loves the idea that “average joes” can beat Madison avenue at their own game. While it’s true that Doritos’ CTSB commercials have relatively microscopic budgets I’m not sure it’s accurate to say that these “consumer made” ads were created by amateurs. Once in a while there will be a low budget success story like last year’s $20 ad “” but the truth is that most of the people who make the finals are professional or semi-professional filmmakers who spend THOUSANDS of dollars to get to the Top 5.

Does that sound unfair? Well, get over it because it’s not! The Super Bowl is the biggest TV event of the year and a million dollars in prize money is at stake. So Doritos can’t pick commercials that look cheap or cheesy. It takes money and talent to create a 30 second video that is technically good enough to air on television and I tip my hat to all the folks who have the cojones to do what it takes to win this contest.

So how much does it actually cost to make the Crash the Super Bowl finals? Well Doritos always puts out some background info about the winners and sometimes they include the budgets of every commercial that makes the top 5. You can check out the 2013 press page here but I’ll post some of the basic info that FritoLay provided. Yes, the numbers in green indicate how much that person spent on their submission.

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Spot:
Creator: Ben Callner
Budget: $5,000
Occupation: Freelance Film Director
City/hometown: Decatur, GA

Spot:
Creator: Tyler Dixon
Budget: $2,500
Occupation: Freelance writer/director
City: Los Angeles, CA and Lehi, UT

Spot:
Creator: Mark Freiburger
Budget: $300
Occupation: Freelance Director
City: Los Angeles, CA

Spot:
Creator: Sasha Shemirani
Budget: $1,000
Occupation: Photographer
City: Los Angeles, CA

Spot:
Creator: Joe Taranto
Budget: $5,000
Occupation: Student/director
City: Los Angeles, CA

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So….this is easily the most expensive group of Crash the Super Bowl finalists we’ve ever seen. TWO entries cost more than $5,000(!) to produce and the others weren’t exactly shot on the cheap either. It’s also worth noting that all but 4 of the 5 winners live in Los Angeles and 5 out of 5 of them listed their occupation as some kind of photographer or filmmaker. Obviously anyone from anywhere in the US could make the Crash the Super Bowl finals but year after year we see that most of the winners are male filmmakers aged 20 to 40 from Southern California who spend more than $1,000 producing their submission. I’m not saying you need to move to LA if you want to win The Crash next year but if you come up with an amazing idea you’re probably going to have to spend a serious chunk of change on your video if you want to be a serious contender in this contest.

VCN Sponsor Spotlight: 1/14/13

Posted by Dan L. on January 14th, 2013

So….you didn’t make the Crash the Super Bowl finals this year, did you? Oh well, such is life. You’ve had 2 weeks now to feel bad about your Doritos loss so it’s time for you to get back on that ~~horse~~ goat and find a new contest to enter. Our sponsors are running some massive video contests and assignments this month so here’s a quick run down of the ones that I happen to think are the most appealing.

Deadline: TBA

TONGAL’S “THE BIG GAME” VIDEO PROJECT: Here’s a huge contest that totally came out of nowhere. A few days ago Tongal launched a contest for Dunder Mifflin paper (YES, THAT IS A REAL THING NOW) and the winning ad might air on TV in Scranton, PA during “The Big Game.” You know what the “Big Game” is right?? Well for legal reasons, Tongal can’t actually use the phrase “Super Bowl” but Tongal and the NFL can’t tell Beardy what to write so I’ll say it, If you win this contest your freaking commercial might air in Scranton during the super bowl! Sure, nation-wide would be nice but getting an ad on TV in even just one market during “the big game” is a huge deal. Plus Dunder Mifflin will most likely also use the winning ads online and that would be pretty sweet too. Tongal runs their contests in phases and the pitch phase for this one ends in about a day! If you don’t win the pitch phase don’t worry, wild card entries are accepted for this contest. $25,000 in prizes are at stake so hurry up and get your cousin Mose to help you shoot something more amazing than an episode of Battlestar Galactic that features an all bear cast. Head here for the details. Pitch Phase Deadline: January 15th, 2013.

Deadline: January 24th, 2013

WOMADZ’ “BE THE FIRST” CONTEST: Late last year a new player joined the video contest scene; Womadz.com. Womadz is currently holding their first ever contest as sort of a test run. It’s a neat and worthwhile contest for a few reasons. First, the site is actually offering some decent prizes. In the last few years Ive seen a handful of video contest sites come and go because the folks running them didn’t have the capital necessary to back their first contests. No one is going to spend a lot of time and money to win a “grand prize” of $500. But Womadz is offering $15,000 in prizes this time. And the funny thing is, their first contest is just sort of for fun. Like I said it’s a test run so there is no actual sponsor. And that’s the other reason I like this competition; filmmakers can just shoot a crazy commercial for any made-up product they want. So if you’re like me an you have a bunch of random ideas jotted down in a notebook it might be time to pull out one of your favorites and shoot it. The deadline for this is still 10 days away so you’ve got lots of time. Click here for more info. Deadline: January 24th, 2013.

Deadlines: February 3rd + 7th

POPTENT’S AMERICAN EXPRESS ASSIGNMENTS: Currently Poptent is running two separate assignments that are being sponsored by American Express and both of them are very winnable. Most Poptent members go after the easy and fun assignments. For instance, Poptent’s new SpaghettiO’s assignment will probably get a bazillion entries because anybody can buy a can of SpaghettiO’s and make a wacky viral video about how awesome they are. But I’ve noticed that credit card and financial assignments don’t usually get a ton of submissions. That’s because you can’t just make something crazy and goofy; you also have to craft an accurate and articulate explanation of the companies services. So if you’re willing to spend more than 15 minutes writing your submission you might want to go after one of the new American Express assignments. Yeah, yeah, credit cards aren’t fun. But you know what is fun? Making a $7,500 Poptent sale. If you enter the SpaghettiO’s assignment you’ll probably have a 1 in 80 shot of making a sale. But if you enter either of the American Express assignments you’ll probably have like a 1 in 20 chance of making a sale. For details about AMEX’s Receipt Match assignment head here and for the AMEX Serve assignment head here. OH BY THE WAY! Poptent is offering 2 seed payments this month of $250 for all of their open assignments. If you want to apply for one for either of these assignments, join this discussion and throw your hat in the ring. Deadlines: February 3rd and February 7th, 2013.

Deadline: January 21st, 2013

MOFILM’S SYDNEY CONTEST: Hey you know where I’d like to go? Sydney freaking Australia, that’s where. Well if I were to win one of the four brand competitions in Mofim’s newest contest my $8,000 prize would come with a trip for two to the upside down apple. (That city needs a nickname so I’m hoping this one will catch on.) There are 4 different video contests rolled up in this one event and the briefs look pretty fun. As always, there are lots of prizes at stake for each brand so go get your Cousin Mose to help you write something better than an episode of Battlestar Galactica that features an all-Koala bear cast. Then if you win please keep me in mind for your plus one. I’m willing to bet I’d be more fun to travel with than your Cousin Mose. That dude’s a weirdo. Head here for a list of the brands that are participating in this contest. Deadline, January 21, 2013.

Doritos’ “Nacho Average Ad Award” winners

Posted by Dan L. on January 10th, 2013

This year Doritos added an unexpected element to the Crash the Super Bowl contest. After the submission deadline passed, the Crash judges nominated a bunch of submissions for something the called the “Nacho Average Ad awards.” There were 8 categories in total; Weirdest Workplace, Best Supporting Babe, Sweetest ‘Stache and….ok, I forget the rest. Anyways, the winners were determined by a public vote and the results were announced a few days ago. Each winner gets a year’s supply of Doritos(!) and a trophy. Doritos asked the winners to create their own acceptance videos. The montage of all those videos is pretty weird and worth checking out:

The video mentions that this was the first and “maybe annual” Nacho Average Award competition. I really like this idea and I hope they bring in back again next year. It’s nice that some of the non-finalists are able to get a little glory. Actually, I think FritoLay should expand “the Nachos” and maybe give like a month’s supply of free doritos and some other swag to everyone who gets nominated. A UPS package full of even 50 bucks worth of free stuff is a great way to show Doritos’ die hard fans that their work is appreciated.

VCN reviews the 2013 Crash the Super Bowl finalists

Posted by Dan L. on January 4th, 2013

Well the wait is finally over! At 8PM EST last night Doritos revealed their 5 finalists for the 2012-2013 installment of the Crash the Super Bowl contest. The announcement came in the form of hosted by the “Doritos Girl” Ali Landry (who somehow looks hotter now than she did in her Dorito ad 15 years ago.) FritoLay saw a MASSIVE drop in the number of entries they received this year and to me it seemed like the pickings were pretty slim. But the Crash the Super Bowl judges managed to put together a decent list of finalists. Each of the 2013 winners will receive $25,000 and a trip for two to the Super Bowl next month. And the finalists are….

1. by Ben Callner of Atlanta, Georgia

2. by Tyler Dixon of Los Angeles, California

3. by Mark Freiburger of Los Angeles, California

4. by Sasha Shemirani of San Diego, California

5. by Joe Taranto of Los Angeles, California

Overall this is a very interesting top 5. All the selected ads feel like Crash the Super Bowl commercials but I suspect that maybe Friotlay brought in some fresh judges this year. These picks are just sorta different than the stuff that normally makes the finals (and that’s a good thing.) Ok, time for my reviews!

GOAT 4 SALE: This might just be my new, all-time favorite Crash the Super Bowl entry. I freaking love this ad. It’s a perfect little 30 second short film. The actors are great, the cinematography is fantastic, the pacing is perfect and the goat is destined to become a super star. One of the best things about this commercial is that it actually does a good job of selling the featured product. Watching Goat 4 Sale makes me want to fill my cabinets with Doritos and scarf down a whole bagful. This year a public vote will choose one Doritos ad to air during the Super Bowl and then Fritolay will pick a second ad that will also air. The team that made Goat 4 Sale shouldn’t even waste their time asking for votes because there is no way in heck that FritoLay won’t chose to run this spot during the big game. This commercial is awesomely hilarious from beginning to end which means it will get a huge score in USA Today’s Ad Meter poll. So if Goat 4 Sale airs during the Super Bowl it will be ranked one of the Top 3 ads of the game and honestly, I think it will actually take the #1 spot in a walk. Plus after the game millions of people would go online so they can re-watch this ad. That shot of the goat screaming will probably wind up being one of the most memorable moments of Super Bowl XLVII.

ROAD CHIP: This one isn’t laugh-out-loud funny but it’s well made and I like it. It’s pretty obvious that this ad was created by a director who really understands what it takes to win the Crash the Super Bowl contest. (He’s made the finals 3 times now!) Obviously super adorable dogs are good and obviously clever babies are good but if you feature a baby and a dog in your ad you’re probably going to score some major points with the focus groups that review the shortlist of potential CTSB finalists. So sometimes it pays to pander! And I’m not trying to sound like a jerk, I’m being serious…this contest is about making a commercial that will be as popular as possible with as many viewers as possible and people just happen to like commercials that feature dogs and babies so filmmakers might as well give the people what they want. I don’t think this ad would make the top 3 on the Ad Meter but I do think it has a better shot than any of the other non-goat-themed finalists.

FASHIONISTA DADDY: This pick really surprised me. I think it’s cute and funny and very slick but it’s not very…oh I don’t know…epic. This seems like the kind of video that might win $7,500 in a Poptent assignment. Usually Crash the Super Bowl ads feel more original than this. The “tough guys dress in drag” premise has been totally done to death, hasn’t it? Why would Doritos pick an ad with such a played out concept? I also don’t see this spot doing very well on the Ad Meter. I think viewers will enjoy it and the wedding dress joke at the end is funny but the Super Bowl is when advertisers bring out their big guns. This ad just won’t be able to beat whatever crazy commercials Bud Light or E-Trade or Volkswagon air. Again, I do sorta kinda like Fashionista Daddy but no one is going to jump on the Internet after the game to re-watch this one.

EXPRESS CHECKOUT: I like this one and I think it’s neat that Doritos actually picked a subtle video that isn’t filled with cute dogs and wacky toddlers. This might sound weird but my favorite part of the ad is when the Kristen Schaal-esque checkout girl whispers “no” to the jerk in line. The director of this ad clearly has a strong talent for directing actors. All the characters play their roles just right. If the jerk in line had been a little jerkier it would have ruined this spot. And if the Kristen Schaal girl hadn’t gotten mad at the jerk it would have made her seem mean. The bad news is that like “Fashionista Daddy” this ad probably wouldn’t score very well on the USA Today ad meter. It’s a nice little short film but it would get lost in the shuffle on Super Bowl sunday.

FETCH: I have mixed feelings about this ad. It’s fun and well made and very amusing but it’s very similar to the 2012 CTSB finalist ad “.” In Hot Wild Girls, two guys gets wishes from a Siri-like smartphone app. They ask for Doritos and they magically appear. Then they ask for some “Hot Wild Girls” and the phone thinks the guy asked for “Three Rottweilers.” So three Rottweilers show up and chase the guys away. It’s pretty obvious that the writer of Fetch was ahem….inspired by Hot Wild Girls. The plots are basically identical; the stars of both ads discover a magical thing that can bring them whatever they ask for. They ask for Doritos and then they ask for hot women. But the magical thing misunderstands and conjures up a scary animal that chases the guys away. I’m really disappointed that Doritos chose to reward such a blatant act of copy-cattery. It’s a funny and well done copy but that doesn’t change the fact that the writer lifted the concept from a previous winner. Ok, just for the heck of it I’ll post Hot Wild Girls. Watch it and decide for yourself whether or not it “inspired” Fetch.

And now, here are a few random observations I have about this set of finalists:

-ONLY 1 REPEAT FINALIST MADE IT THIS YEAR: This is a real surprise. Last year 3 of the 5 selected ads were shot by filmmakers who had already seen their work make the top 5. That’s pretty strange when you consider that last year the odds of making the finals were about 1 in 1,200. I did an interview with some of the top CTSB judges and posted an article that outlined the reasons why I thought the Crash kept getting so many repeat winners. (For example, past winners had become friends with many of the judges during their trip to the Super Bowl.) I don’t know if Doritos changed the way that they pick their finalists but I have a feeling that something was done about the problem since a lot of former finalists entered again but only one made the top 5. UPDATE: Several sharp-eyed readers have messaged me to let me know that Fasionista Daddy was actually created by several guys that are affiliated with a team from Mosaic Church in LA who have written and produced 3 or 4(!) previous Crash the Super Bowl finalists including “Sling Baby” which won a million dollars last year. So….these dudes won a million bucks last year and even that didn’t get them to retire.

-THE DIRECTOR OF “ROAD CHIP” HAS MADE THE FINALS 3 YEARS IN A ROW: The one former finalist who did manage to make the top 5 again this year is Tyler Dixon. Dixon has now managed to make the finals in 2013, 2012 and 2011. (That might sound shocking but last year a director named Kevin Willson made the finals for a 3rd time.) Dixon’s entries are always pretty good but it’s impossible to deny that being a former finalist has given him a tremendous advantage over the rest of the filmmakers in this competition. Another former finalist (that Dixon met at the Super Bowl in 2011) helped him make “Road Chip” and he was able to use his track record and the cash that he’s won to produce a professional-quality commercial. According to the announcement video, Dixon looked at 100 different dogs and auditioned more than 40 toddlers before casting the adorable duo featured in Road Chip. Most CTSB hopefuls have to use their own goofy dog and cast their buddy’s kid. Even the most professional entrants would be lucky to find a few real child actors interested in auditioning. But if you’ve already won this contest twice and if your previous Doritos commercials have already aired on TV the whole process of making an entry becomes much, much easier. Who wouldn’t want to work with someone who has proved that they can get really, really close to winning a million dollars in this contest? Don’t get me wrong, I think Mr. Dixon is a talented guy and Road Chip is a pretty good commercial but just because you can spend a bunch of money and cast the best actors and get the best crew and make the finals every year doesn’t mean you should. If you’ve already created 2 commercials that have aired on TV and if one of those ads actually aired during the SuperBowl then maybe it’s time to relinquish your amateur status, get a manager and become a professional commercial director. You don’t need to keep trying to win a million dollars, just go get a job with an agency and earn a million dollars.

-ONLY 2 OF THE 5 WINNING ADS FEATURED DOGS: Commercials that feature dogs tend to do pretty well on the USA Today Ad Meter so for the last few years Doritos has gone dog-crazy. But this year they only picked 2 dog-themed ads which is a nice change of pace.

-LITTLE GIRLS ARE THE NEW DOGS!: I guess Fritolay must have gotten some focus group data that revealed that people love commercials that feature precocious little girls. Doritos almost never picks ads that feature kids so it is kind of surprising that they’d pick two little girl-themed ads in one year.

-ALL 5 WINNING FILMMAKERS ARE DUDES: Women might make up 51% if the population but they make up 0% of the winners of this year’s Crash the Super Bowl Contest. There’s not really a lot FritoLay can do about this I guess but in the 6 years Doritos has been running this contest I think that only like 3 women have ever made the top 5 and that’s sort of a shame.

-NONE OF THE ADS STAR NON-WHITE ACTORS. Again, I guess there’s nothing much Doritos could do about this but filmmakers….seriously, a little diversity will HELP your entry, not hurt it. Hmm, I wonder if any of the 40 little girls that auditioned for Road Chip where black, Hispanic or Asian. At least the director of Fashionista Daddy took a page out of Bud Light’s playbook and cast a multi-racial group of buddies.

-NONE OF THE FINALISTS ARE VERY “EXPLOSIVE.” When Doritos launched this year’s Crash they implied that contestants might want to make their entries exciting, explosive or action packed since Michael Bay was going to help pick this year’s winners. Well, I guess Michael Bay’s tastes have changed and he now prefers frilly tea parties and giggling toddlers over giant robots and graphic shoot outs.

-ALL 5 FINALISTS WERE UP FOR “NACHO AVERAGE AD AWARDS: Ok, I did not see this coming. All of the entries that made the finals had already been singled out by Doritos and nominated for Nacho Average Ad awards. I really thought that Doritos would keep a few of the finalists in their pocket but I guess if you didn’t make the “Nacho Ad” shortlist you didn’t have a shot of making the final 5.

-I PREDICTED 2 OF THE 5 FINALISTS CORRECTLY!: About 3,000 commercials were submitted to the Crash this year but by golly I was able to spot 2 finalists ahead of time; Goat 4 Sale and Road Chip. I also listed 4 other possible contenders and that list included Fetch. So I did pretty good this year but I’m seriously bummed that didn’t make it. That one was awesome.

Voting is now open and you can vote once a day for your favorite ad from now until January 29th. I’ll be voting for Goat 4 Sale even though I’m sure it’s a lock for the Super Bowl. to watch the finalists and cast your vote. But be warned, Doritos’ facebook app freaking sucks and every time you vote an ad for Doritos will basically pop up in your timeline. After a month your friends are really going to be annoyed with all the “So-and-so cast a vote in the Crash the Super Bowl contest!” messages in their news feed. I’m actually working on an article that explains how Doritos’ Facebook app almost ruined this year’s competition so check back here next week for that story.

One final note; VCN always gets a lot of new readers this time of year. If you’re new to the blog, thanks for visiting! Be sure to bookmark us and/or follow us on Twitter if you’re into that sort of thing: