Archive for the ‘Unpleasant Crap’ Category

No, Doritos is not “Going Gay” for the Super Bowl

Posted by Beardy on January 31st, 2011

Man, people will believe anything they read on the Internet. For the second time this month the blogosphere and the mainstream media falsely reported that some random Crash the Super Bowl entries were Doritos’ OFFICIAL 2011 Super Bowl commercials. Last time it was the Pepsi-and-Doritos-communion-themed entry “Feed Your Flock” that inspired Catholics to boycott and petition Fritolay until the company agreed not to air the spot on TV. (the entry didn’t even make the Crash the Super Bowl finals and had no chance of making it to air) This time it was a pair of gay-themed ads called “Told You So” and “The Sauna.” Just for the record, these entries did not make Doritos’ list of Top 5 finalists and have zero shot at airing during the big game.  Here they are:

It’s not 100% clear why the media thought these ads were bound for the Super Bowl.  But it seems like the rumor started after the videos were posted on The Advocate’s website.  Here’s a bit of the story they ran last monday:

DORITOS GOING GAY FOR THE SUPER BOWL?

By Advocate Editors

A bag of Doritos brings two nearly naked men in a sauna closer together in one of two gay-themed ads the company may air during the Super Bowl.

You can read the rest of the short article here.  The author goes on to say that “It has yet to be confirmed whether these two ads will run.” Remember back in the old days of like, 10 years ago when reporters actually had to have confirmation that a story was true before their editor would sign off on it?  If the author of this piece didn’t have all the facts, why not make a call or two before hitting the “Publish” button?  Or if they didn’t have 10 minutes to waste on the phone, why didn’t the try googling the phrase “Dortios 2011 Super Bowl commercials?”  After all the “I’m Feeling Lucky” result is www.crashthesuperbowl.com and the first thing you see when you follow that link is Pepsi and Doritos’ official list of the 10 ads that might actually air on Super Sunday.

So is lazy reporting really this common in the world of online media?  It seems to be because rather than try and find out if this story was accurate, other reporters and bloggers jumped on it right away.  Here’s how Entertainment Weekly’s website covered the story.

DORITOS MAY AIR GAY-THEMED ADS FOR THE SUPER BOWL. CONTROVERSY AWAITS.

You know, it’s been too long — seven years, to be exact — since we’ve had some sexy controversy at the Super Bowl. But it looks like we’re headed that way again this year: According to the Advocate, Doritos plans to air two gay-themed ads during the biggest television event of the year. In one spot (both are embedded after the jump), a man licks his lips watching his supposedly gay neighbors eat Doritos; in the other, a man appears to be reaching for another’s nether regions in a sauna, before it’s revealed that he’s actually reaching for a bag of chips placed in an inconvenient location. It’s not clear whether or not these ads will really run during the big game — Frito-Lay, the PepsiCo division that manufactures Doritos, has yet to respond to EW’s request for comment.

The full article is here. This story was posted to EW’s website at 7Pm last monday; just a few hours after The Advocate’s post went up.  So I gotta wonder, how long did the author wait for Doritos to respond to her request for a comment?  Did the article really have to go up IMMEDIATELY?  What’s really weird is that the EW writer actually goes on to mention Doritos’ problem with the communion-themed ad “Feed Your Flock.”  How could she be aware of that controversy and not realize that maybe these two ads were also non-winning Crash the Super Bowl entries?

While looking into this false story and the “Feed Your Flock” controversy I learned a lot about how a story mutates as it jumps from one media outlet to another.  Sure, The Advocate and Entertainment Weekly and Gawker all mention that there is no confirmation that “The Sauna” and “Told You So” were for sure going to air during the big game.  But later stories I’ve seen dropped that disclaimer and state rumors as fact.  (sample #1, sample #2, sample #3 to cite just a few)  I have to think it’s because the authors of the second round of stories must have thought “Hey, Gakwer and EW and The Advocate are famous so they wouldn’t publish something that wasn’t true so there’s no need for me to take 5 minutes and do a google search to confirm this info!”

The truth then really starts to take a beating when people start tweeting the story and posting it to their facebook pages because all they do is post a link to the videos and say something like this…

viewsofbrandon:The Super Bowl going gay, thanks to a few commercial choice by Doritos! Check both out here! http://ow.ly/1s0cq7 & http://ow.ly/1s0cpQ

KINGBEAN14 BEAN: Doritos got some gay ass super bowl commercials coming out

JamesPLCross: Gay-Themed Super Bowl Ads! For Doritos: wp.me/pIfvI-yE mmm, you like that?

WiLD941: Bring on the complaint calls! DORITOS is planning to run two GAY-themed ads during the Super Bowl!

Those are just a few of the countless tweets I found related to this story. As you can see, when you’re limited to just 140 characters, there’s no room for disclaimers or warnings that the info hasn’t been verified.  But once the story hit the tweet-o-sphere, the two fake super bowl ads went viral.  Both “The Sauna” and “Told You So” have view counts of over 550,000 EACH.

And maybe those massive view counts are the reason this whole thing happened.  To be fair to The Advocate and the other sites that first covered this story, it seems like someone actually went out of their way to make it seem like “The Sauna” and “Told You So” were Doritos’ official 2011 Super Bowl.  Sixty-five of this year’s 5,600 Crash the Super Bowl entries, including the two ads in question, were posted to a youtube channel called .  The channel is (badly) dressed up to make it appear to be an official, Fritolay-run youtube channel.  And all the videos uploaded by 2011DoritoCommercial have names like “Told You So – 2011 Doritos Superbowl Commercial Ad.“  Obviously, Doritos isn’t going to be airing 65 commercials on Super Bowl Sunday but if you were forwarded a link to one specific video and if you didn’t look at the channel page, I can see how you could be fooled into thinking the ad you were watching was somehow sanctioned by Fritolay.

So who created this misleading youtube channel and why?  Doritos is apparently looking into that mystery right now.  GLAAD’s website actually bothered to contact Doritos before running a story about the gay-themed ads.  They got a response from Frito-Lay Director of Public Relations Chris Kuechenmeister right away.  So they set the record straight just a day after the “controversy” began.  (You can read the article here.)  Here’s a few snips:

The company behind Doritos says it is not promoting a pair of consumer-created gay-themed ads, and is looking into whether it can have removed from an unofficial YouTube page.

[Kuechenmeister] said that the contest’s judges sought to “identify spots that were appropriate for everyone” and “observe a level of respect for everybody.”  Even though the spots do not appear on the contest’s official YouTube page and the company has no direct ability to remove them, Kuechenmeister said he would be raising the issue with the company’s legal team.

I bet Fritolay has a pretty good shot at getting the 2011Doritocommercial channel pulled from youtube.  For one thing, the channel owners are using pepsi max and doritos images and that confuses viewers about the legitimacy of the page.  But on top of that, a few days ago the idiots running 2011Doritocommercial also uploaded copies of all of the REAL 2011 Crash the Super Bowl finalists to their channel. Not only is that a violation of youtube’s Terms of Service, now it REALLY looks like the page is associated with Fritolay.

One final note…while looking into this story I noticed a few comments that pointed out that “The Sauna” seems to be a blatant rip-off of this Swedish Newspaper ad.  As you can see, it aired in the US on one of those “Most Outrageous TV Moments!” shows.

And wow…I guess the makers of “The Sauna” weren’t the only ones who saw that show.  Here’s another 2011 CTSB entry with the exact same plot.  It’s even called “The Sauna.“  So two teams of filmmakers seem to have copied the same commercial!  I guess they thought they were being slick by ripping off an ad that aired in Sweden.  Feh.  Let this entire post be a warning to you about the evils of lazy writing and recycling other people’s ideas.  Maybe you can get away with it but it’s a lot more likely that you’ll get caught and wind up looking like an asshole.

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Fox News goes after a Crash the Super Bowl entry

Posted by Beardy on January 24th, 2011

Fox news makes me want to puke.  Seriously, there must be some really despicable people running that network.  They seem to have one goal over there which is to stir up as much shit as possible.  They work long and hard to create as many divisions in this world as they can and sometimes the on-air personalities almost seem to delight in the act of turning something stupid and small into a BIG, FUCKING DEAL.

Apparently Fox’s latest phony B.F.D is a lowly video contest entry.  Remember a few weeks back I mentioned a Crash the Super Bowl submission called “Feed Your Flock” that had managed to offend some Catholics because it featured what appeared to be a Doritos and Pepsi Max communion?  Well, when I first posted about the ad it was getting some coverage on the web thanks to bloggers who assumed it was Fritolay’s OFFICIAL 2011 Super Bowl commercial.  These folks and their misinformed readers started contacting Doritos and Pepsi and threatened a boycott if the ad aired on Super Sunday.  When Fritolay explained to these people that “Feed Your Flock” was NOT their commercial and was just one of 5,000+ entries in the Crash the Super Bowl contest the complainers then started demanding that the ad not win the contest and be removed from the CTSB website.

And guess what?  Fritolay actually pulled the entry!  So…controversy’s over, right?  Ha…no.  Because Fox News just found out about this like a week and a half ago and just because the ad has been pulled doesn’t mean they can’t squeeze some hatred out of this story. Fox’s “Feed Your Flock” coverage started with this short article on FoxNews.com:  http://nation.foxnews.com/culture/2011/01/04/doritos-ad-offends-christians

DORITOS AD OFFENDS CHRISTIANS:

In what may be another ad campaign gone awry, Doritos is featuring a new Super Bowl advertisement in which a priest, searching for ways to return to the church, has a supposedly brilliant idea: Replacing the host wafer with a Dorito. While the denomination of the church is unclear, what is clear is that most Christian denominations consider the host to be a big portion of communion and might find the commercial, titled “Feed your flock!”, insensitive. A spokesman for Frito-Lay told The Examiner that the commercial had been approved and would not be taken down from the website. [link to video omitted]

That’s the entire article.  It feels like something is missing from that story though, doesn’t it?  Oh!  I know…they managed to leave out the fact that “Feed Your Flock” was just one of thousands of entries submitted to a user-generated ad contest!  Not only that, they actually imply that “Feed Your Flock” was going to be Doritos’ official 2011 Super Bowl ad.  Anyone who had done more than 30 seconds of research about this would know that “Feed Your Flock” was just a video contest entry and that it didn’t even make the Crash the Super Bowl finals.  In fact, by the time that story appeared on Foxnews.com, “Feed Your Flock” had already been pulled from the CTSB website.  So you gotta wonder, did Fox intentionally mislead their readers or did the person who wrote the article not even bother to Google “Feed Your Flock”?

The Foxnews.com story got a flood of angry comments and I guess someone at the network realized they had a potential B.F.D on their hands.  So the story made it to air.  Here’s a link to some awful, random Fox News show featuring some random, awful, blond, Fox News anchor where the topic up for debate is “Feed Your Flock.” If you’re familiar with how the Crash The Super Bowl contest is run and judged you’ll realize what little regard the folks at Fox have for the truth. Right off the bat they just make up their own facts and state that “Feed Your Flock” made it “pretty high up but it didn’t make the cut because of all the controversy.” The ad made it “pretty high up” in the judging? Really?? How the heck do they know that? Answer; they don’t. The anchor even very carefully avoids saying this was an entry for a video contest. She makes it sound like Doritos hired several “groups” (implying ad agencies) to create potential Super Bowl ads for them. Watch if you dare:

Not content to just debate the controversial aspects of this ad, Fox had to take things to the next, malicious level by trying to turn a freaking video contest entry into a MUSLIMS VS. CHRISTIANS thing. If you couldn’t stomach to watch the above clip, one guy on the panel goes off on a “Why is it ok to make fun of Christians but we can’t make fun of Muslims” rant. It’s a Goddamn video contest entry and these people are using it as an excuse to reinforce the Us Vs. Them/Muslim Vs. Christian/All or Nothing paranoia that keeps their creepy network in business.

If only there was someone good and decent wandering the media wasteland that could offer us salvation from the hate-mongers! Enter my TV hero, Stephen Colbert. The other night he gave the above “news” clip some of the context it was lacking.  Skip to 2:24 for the “Feed Your Flock” stuff.

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Thought for Food – Fruit Pouch, Doritos Ad & Super Big Gulp
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

That was awesome.  The great irony of this whole controversy is that “Feed Your Flock” has gotten more and better media coverage than all 10 of the actual Crash the Super Bowl finalists combined!  I mean, the entry made it on Stephen Colbert.  That’s a hell of an accomplishment.

And “Feed Yoru Flock” did make it on to one more notable show; The O’Reilly Factor.  Now, as much as I dislike Fox I gotta admit, Bill O’Reilly is a lot more “fair and balanced” than the rest of the anchors and hosts on his network.  He’s able to get his opinions across without resorting to making up his own facts.  Case in point; here’s his coverage of the “Feed Your Flock” kerfuffle.

You know that things have gotten out of hand when it’s up to Bill O’reiley to be the voice of reason.  He and his guest basically say “hey, it’s not too offensive, Doritos didn’t make it or buy it and the ad didn’t even make the Crash the Super Bowl’s Top 10 so what’s the big deal?”

Let’s wrap this up by giving the final words to Dave Williams and Mike Lyons; the filmmakers who created the ad in question.

I have a google alert set for “Crash the Super Bowl” and I can tell you that “Feed Your Flock” has absolutely dominated the press coverage of the 2011 Crash the Super Bowl contest.  But now that game day is almost here hopefully the media will turn their attention from one video out of thousands that didn’t win to the 10 ads that actually have a shot at airing during the big game.

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How to cast a protest vote in the CTSB contest!

Posted by Beardy on January 5th, 2011

Now that you’ve had some time to get over the shock of Fritolay’s bizarre finalist choices in the Crash the Super Bowl contest it’s time to decide which entries you’re going to get behind during the month-long voting process.  What’s that you say, Mr. Sore Loser Man?  You’re so disappointed in Pepsi and Doritos’ Top 10 that you’re not going to vote for any of them?  Well that’s certainly understandable but not voting for any of the videos isn’t going to bother Fritoaly in the slightest.  In fact, you might be giving them exactly what they want.  I’ve heard a slew of theories in the last few days about why Doritos and Pepsi picked several commercials that would be destined to tank if they aired during the Super Bowl.  Some readers have posted comments saying that they think Fritolay wanted to make sure their commercials don’t score all top 3 spots in the Super Bowl ad meter.  (If that happened, they’d have to pay out 5 million dollars in bonuses!)  One 2009 finalist has said that the executives at the ad agency Goodby/Silverstien (they help fritolay run and judge the contest) may be sabotaging the “Crash” on purpose because its continued success is making them and the rest of their industry look bad.  But personally, I believe that the CTSB judges picked several weak, unappealing ads in an effort to funnel votes to the higher quality entries they want to see play during the Super Bowl. After all, the producer who’s ad scores highest on the ad meter wins a contract to produce a big budget commercial for Pepsi Max and Doritos.  So I think the judges stacked the deck in favor of the producers that they think could best handle that assignment.

Or maybe I’m crazy.  Maybe Pepsi and Doritos are totally psyched about all 10 of their selections and consider ALL of them capable of scoring in the Top 3 on the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter.  Whatever the case may be, if you choose not to vote for any finalist videos this year, you’re only hurting yourself.  Because every day, 2 random voters will win a pair of tickets to this year’s Super Bowl.  So you might as well vote.  And if you’re going to vote, you might as well try and send a message when you do.  That’s why I’m recommending that you vote for the Pepsi Max finalist and Doritos finalist that probably have the lowest chances of scoring well on the ad meter.  That would be ADAM & EVE for Doritos and ELEVATOR GIRL for Pepsi Max.

Now admittedly, this is kind of a dickish thing to do.  A few of this year’s Crash the Super Bowl finalists are pretty decent and some of them might even stand a chance at landing in the Top 3 on the ad meter.  Isn’t “voting for the worst” just going to hurt the hardworking filmmakers that made good, Super Bowl-worthy ads?  Naaaaw.  Because don’t forget, only 2 ads from each product will get onto the game via the public vote.  Pepsi and Doritos also get to select one ad each from their Top 5′s regardless of how many votes it gets.  So the best ads are already pretty much a lock.

I think Doritos already plans to air “Birthday Wish” and is hoping to also air “House Sitting” and “The Best Part.”  So why do I think “Adam & Eve” is a sacrificial “weak” entry?  Because if it actually makes it to the Super Bowl, it’s doomed to tank on the ad meter.  Nothing interesting happens for the first 20 seconds which means the Ad Meter Focus Groups won’t be turning their dials to “like.”  Doritos has to realize this.  So why would they pick it?  Maybe they’re hoping to stir up some controversy?  I don’t know.  But I am pretty confident that “Adam & Eve” is not an ad they actually want to play during the game.

As for Pepsi, I think they plan to air “Torpedo Cooler” and are hoping to air “Love Hurts” and “First Date.”  “Zero Calories, Psshh!” at least has funny sounds in it and bright colors so it’d score a little higher than “Elevator Girl” on the ad meter.  If I were to meet one of the Pepsi judges tomorrow and if they looked me straight in the eye and told me that they honestly think that “Elevator Girl” is good enough for the Super Bowl and that it has a shot at landing in the Top 3 on the USA Today ad meter I’d call them a liar to their face.  I think “Elevator Girl” is only in the Top 5 because the judges know that no one but the friends and family of the cast and crew of that entry would ever vote for it.  So it has no real shot of making it to air….unless of course some asshole on the internet realized it’d be funny to try and get people to vote for the worst entries!

I know from all the comments and e-mails I’ve gotten this week that a lot of you are really feeling hurt about the way this contest has played out.  And your feelings are justified.  I know that some of you spent months planning multiple entries and spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars on your submissions.  And you did this because until now, only entries that were actually TV-QUALITY had a shot of winning this competition.  So to see an entry like “Zero Calories, Pshh!” make the finals and then read an article like this one where the director reveals that he literally shot and edited the ad in just 2 hours is a major bummer.  Doritos and Pepsi let filmmakers waste their time, money and talent and so those filmmakers have the right to feel a little disgruntled.

Last month, roughly 10,000 people visited this website because they were interested in the Crash the Super Bowl contest.  January is only 5 days old and we’ve already had almost 5,000 unique visitors this month.  People are coming here because they are upset about the choices that Pepsi and Doritos made and they literally had no place else to go to vent their frustrations.  I cannot tell you how many e-mails and comments I’ve gotten that said “thank you for letting me know I’m not crazy and that some of these choices are just not good.”

So in all seriousness, if you want to let the folks at Fritolay know that they made some bad decisions, you’re going to have to prove it to them.  And the way you prove it to them is by voting the weakest entries onto the Super Bowl where they will crash and burn on the Ad Meter Poll.  I don’t know about you but I think it’d be hilarious if we could actually get “Elevator Girl” to play for 100 million people.  And I think it’s do-able.  As I just mentioned, many thousands of people are going to see this post and most of them already are registered at CrashtheSuperbowl.com.  Voting in this contest is incredibly easy.  It will take you 10 seconds and you can vote for one Pepsi Max entry and one Doritos entry per day.  There are still 26 days left in the voting.  So let’s help Pepsi Max and Doritos get what they apparently want by voting for the worst of this year’s 10 Crash the Super Bowl finalists.  Click the “Adam & Eve” and “Elevator Girl” images above to vote for those ads or follow this link:  .

And if you’re one of the people who worked on these two ads, all I can say is this is nothing personal.  I can’t fault you one bit for winning this contest.  As one reader said in a comment, you won the lotto in a contest that was supposed to be based on skill.  So just sit back and enjoy the ride.  You do want your ad to air during the big game, don’t you?  Well great!  Then let us try and make that happen for you!

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The 2011 Crash the Super Bowl finalists are revealed

Posted by Beardy on January 3rd, 2011

Sweet jumping Jesus! The Top 10 finalists for the 2011 Crash the Super Bowl contest were revealed a little after midnight last night and I absolutely could not believe the results when I saw them. I mean literally, I did NOT believe the results I was looking at. The reveal was scheduled to happen at exactly 12AM but when I checked the site at ten after, the finalists had yet to be posted. I checked again a few minutes later and the site was blank. So when the 10 finalists finally appeared I honestly thought that there had been some kind of glitch or something and several random videos were being used to fill some of the the finalist slots. I know it must sound like I’m joking but I’m not. The results of this contest are just simply that unbelievably disappointing.

I’ve been looking forward to the reveal of the CTSB finals videos for weeks, not because I thought I might win but because I love watching great video contest entries. And until now, the Crash the Super Bowl finalist videos tended to be some of the best, funniest, most cleaver, most memorable commercials of the year. (Just a few days ago I was at a New Year’s Party and I heard someone say “Keep your hands off my momma, keep your hands off my Doritos!”)  But the 2011 batch of finalists are just so…so…lame. All of the finalist ads are ok, and a few are even pretty good but most of them range from annoying to mediocre.  And one of them probably should have even been disqualified for violating the rules.

On Saturday I posted my predictions for the Top 5 Pepsi Max ads and it turns out I was way, way off.  I got 1 out of 5 correct (Love Hurts.) One other ad, “Torpedo Cooler” made my Top 30 list. The other 3 finalists did make my unofficial “decent entries” list (I bookmarked every entry I saw that was at least ok) but I never, NEVER would have excepted to see some of these spots make the Top 5. There were just SO MANY BETTER ADS submitted I cannot comprehend what led Doritos and Pepsi to make some of these choices.

One of my other predictions did come true though and it came true in a BIG way. I predicted that this year, the CTSB judges would be looking for commercials that did not look as professional as past finalist videos. I predicted they’d be looking for stuff that seemed more home-made and was maybe even rough around the edges. And let me tell you, some of these finalist videos are pretty rough! I love that Fritolay is willing to give videos of low production quality a shot but I expected the ads to also be funny! If a video looks bad and sounds bad and isn’t funny or interesting, then it’s just a bad ad. I would much rather see 10 super slick but funny ads dominate the Top 10.

By now you’ve probably watched all Top finalist videos for yourself.  But I’m going to give each spot a brief review.  I’ll be scoring each ad on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being a total embarrassment and 10 being one of the best commercials of the year.  Click the images to watch the ad on the CTSB site.  Here are the Doritos ads first followed by the Pepsi Max ads:

ADAM EVE. VCN’s score:  5/10. This is one of the coolest commercials for apples I have ever seen.  Too bad it’s supposed to be an ad for Doritos.  It’s hard to tell since the chips don’t appear until the very end.  The ad looks gorgeous and the girl is crazy hot but the pay off is a total groaner.  After the chips are revealed I half expected to hear that ironic, anti-climactic trumpet sound.  You know…waww waaaaaaw.  Is this ad really special enough to air in front of 100 million people on Super Bowl sunday? Chances on the Ad Meter: LOW.  Except for the pretty CG background and the “naked” girl, there is nothing going on here that would cause viewers to crank their dials to “like.”  In fact, it might even offend some of the more religious members of the Ad Meter focus group.

BIRTHDAY WISH. VCN’s score:  6/10.  Birthday Wish is one of the best of the Top 10 and it was directed by 2010 Crash the Super Bowl finalist Kevin Willson.  Last year his ad “” played during the Super Bowl but didn’t crack the Top 10 on the ad meter.  Though this spot is funny, I believe that it probably is in violation of the official rules of the contest and should have been disqualified.  The rules state that all sound effects must be original.  This ad is filled with sound effects and I swear I recognize several of them.   The first time the kids all yell “yayyy!” sounds like a popular stock sound and I KNOW I have heard those robot noises before.  I think they come from an old robot toy.  So the sound guy may have recorded the sound from the toy but it’s still copyright infringement if he did. Jan 5 UPDATE: I’m lowering the score for this ad from 8/10 to 6/10.  I was so distracted by the lack of quality in some of the other finalist videos that I let the slickness of this ad distract me from it’s content.  Re-watching it I realize that the product it is meant to advertise, Doritos only get about 3 SECONDS of quality screen time.  This contest isn’t a film festival. The selected ads still have to sell some chips.  Chances on the ad meter: GOOD.  The ad is funny and interesting all the way through though it lacks a big punchline.  I can see this making the top 5 but not the top 3.

HOUSE SITTING. VCN’s score: 6/10. I can sum up my reaction to this spot in three letters W…T…F?  The ad is well made and nicely paced but it just gives me the heebie jeebies.  There’s just something creepy about a cremated old man coming back from the dead.  And the circumstances of this spot are pretty weird.  For one thing, why would a “grandson” have his grandfather’s ashes?  Did none of grandpa’s children want them?  And how many 25 year old’s have you ever met that keep someone’s ashes on their mantle?  One last question, how will this ad make anyone want to buy or eat Doritos?  Chances on the ad meter: MODERATE.  This is not an ad that anyone is going to love but the “happy ending” would keep it from sinking too low in the rankings.

PUG ATTACK. VCN’s score:  4/10.  I liked this ad a lot better the first time I saw it…when it was called Underdog.  I means seriously Fritolay, you picked another finalist ad about a guy who tries to torture a cute dog by offering him Doritos?  At least last year’s dog-centric finalist video was clever and wacky.  This ad is just drawn out and predictable.  And I think viewers are going to remember and realize this is probably a rip-off. (seriously, click that link to compare them)  The people who made it had to have been trying to do their own version of that ad, probably because Underdog did so well on the ad meter last year.  I mean the ad even ends with the dog eating from the bag on the ground just like in Underdog.  Chances on the Ad Meter: LOW TO MODERATE.  The dog is cute but the ad is soooo drawn out.  Viewers will get bored before the punchline comes.  I’d expect it to rank at about #17.

THE BEST PART. VCN’s score:  7/10. Do people watching the super bowl really want to see one man suck orange “cheese” off the fingers of another man?  No…probably not.  The lead actor’s performance is funny but the character is kind of a rip off of the characters that comedian Nick Swardson does.  Jan 4th UPDATE: The phrase “Mmmm, Cheese!” has been stuck in my head since yesterday and I’ve actually chuckled to myself as I recalled the ad.  That says A LOT about the effectiveness of this commercial.  Chances on the ad meter: MODERATE.  “Hey, is that Mclovin in that ad!?  I think it is!!”  That’s how a lot of people are going to react when they first see this commercial.  No, that’s McLovin from SuperBad.  But if viewers THINK that’s Mclovin they might actually score the ad higher just because they like seeing that guy.  But the unappetizing finger and pants licking could turn off a number of ad meter viewers.

ELEVATOR GIRL. VCN’s Score:  2/10. This spot will probably forever have the distinction of being the worst Crash the Super Bowl finalist ever. It is so appallingly bad that you have to wonder if it was made by the son of some big shot at PepsiCo.  The jokes and performances are as bland as the visuals.  A plain white elevator?  That’s supposed to catch viewer’s eyes during the Super Bowl?  And the “punchline” is so lame and so poorly delivered that my immediate reaction was “is that it!?”  This entry isn’t even good enough to play at 2am on Nick at Night let alone the Super Bowl.  Chances on the Ad Meter: NONE.  There is no way in the world the Pepsi judges could think this spot would ever make the Top 3 on the ad meter.  This pick is so suspiciously bad that I can’t help but wonder if they are trying to tank this contest on purpose.

FIRST DATE.  VCN’s Score:  5/10. Personally, I like this one but I don’t think it’s right for such a high profile contest.  I remember thinking this ad was cute and funny when I first saw it but is this really a Super Bowl commercial?  If it plays during the big game are people going to want to watch it again later on youtube?  Are they going to want to tweet the link or post it on their facebook pages?  Would anyone even remember this ad by the end of the game?  Chances on the Ad Meter. LOW.  The low production values and lack of action will turn off most viewers right from the start.  It does start to get funnier as it goes on but the whole ad is just too low-key to make an impression on focus group viewers.

LOVE HURTS.  VCN’s Score:  9/10. This is the best finalist of the entire Top 10.  It’s funny all the way through and it actually tells you why you should drink Pepsi Max; it tastes good but it also has zero calories.  But the best thing about this ad is that it features a classic Crash the Super Bowl surprise at the end.  Chances on the Ad Meter: HIGH.  If any CTSB ad has a chance of making the Top 3 this year it’s this one….but I don’t think it will.  Let’s be realistic here; the ad features an African American woman assaulting a pretty blond white girl.  Some folks are going to be offended by that.  Those people will be idiots but there are a lot of idiots in this country.

TORPEDO COOLER.  VCN’s Score: 8/10. This is the best ad of the bunch after Love Hurts.  It was directed by 2010 CTSB finalist Brendon Haywood.  Brendon’s ad didn’t wind up airing during the Super Bowl.  Since one team of finalists actually got two ads in the Top 6 last year, Brendon was the only guy in the contest who didn’t get to see one of his commercials air during the big game.  I remember getting the feeling that the other finalists and the Fritlay folks felt really bad for the guy since he was the only “non-winner.”  Like I said, this is a good ad and it made my Top 30 list.  But could this choice be Fritolay’s way of giving a nice guy a second shot at the bigtime?  Chances on the ad meter: MODERATE TO GOOD.  This is a funny ad that looks great and has some cool effects in it.  I can see this spot making the Top 10 on the ad meter.

ZERO CALORIES?  PSSSHT! VCN’s Score:  4/10. Psssht indeed!  What the F%*& is this video doing in the Top 10!?  More than 1400 commercials were submitted to this contest.  Is this really one of the best??  The only reason I can think of that this ad made it is because it features all women it was submitted by someone named BrandyGill74.  In all the years the Crash the Super Bowl contest has been run there has never been one, single female finalist.  Fritolay knew that was unacceptable and I think they decided there had to be a female director included in the top 10.  And “BrandyGill74” sounds like the screen name of a 36 year old female director.  Seriously, that’s the only explanation that makes any sense.  This commercial is simply annoying as hell.  The sound isn’t even any good.  It’s not fit for TV.  UPDATE: Turns out “Brandy Gill” is a guy.”  I think his name really might have helped his chances though.  Chances on the Ad Meter: NONE TO LOW.  Who could like this?  Seriously, who?  Does Pepsi think it will appeal to women?  Because I think most women will see this and just think that’s one group of weird white ladies.

Ok, now I know I’ve been pretty harsh on some of these ads but I want to stop and take a moment to offer my congratulations to all the finalists.  No, seriously!  I mean it.  We have a rule here at Video Contest News; don’t hate the player, hate the game.  You can’t blame anyone for winning a video contest fair and square.  Judges sometimes make idiotic decisions but it’s not the filmmaker’s fault.  Some of this year’s finalists got incredibly lucky and I’m sure they know it.  So good for them for pulling off a win.  I can’t say that I’m not jealous.

But I also can’t say that I’m not pissed.  Something seriously wrong has happened here.  Pepsi and Doritos snubbed hundreds of decent ads in favor of some incredibly lame videos.  And this isn’t sore loser talk.  I think the general public and marketing professionals are going to be stunned when they see the ads that Fritolay and their consultants at Goodby/Silverstein selected to represent their brands.  Goodby/Silverstein is a very big and respected ad agency.  How could they let their clients make such awful choices?  If a spot like “Elevator Girl” winds up playing during the Super Bowl it will be a major embarrassment for everyone involved.  Hell, it will be a major embarrassment for people who are not involved like YOU and ME!  I think the most troubling thing about these results is that if companies think these 10 finalists are the “best” that we “little guys” can come up with, the video contest/user-generated ad  phenomenon might be in serious trouble.

So, what do YOU think of the 2011 Crash the Superbowl finalists?  Speak your mind in the comment section!

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