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Ads from Doritos Crash the Super Bowl Contest are back again

Super Bowl XLIII is now just a little over two weeks away which will be played on Sunday, February 2 in the New Jersey Meadowlands.  The conference championship games are this weekend, which most of the time are considered the two best games of the season. We have the San Fransisco 49’s going into Seattle to play the  Seahawks for the NFC title and the New England Patriots headed to Denver to play the Broncos for the AFC win. Now San Fran and Seattle play each other all season, so it should be interesting. SF knows what it’s getting into playing in Seattle’s stadium which keeps breaking noise records. It’s the Denver/NE game that I’m really interested in. With two top quarterbacks that both have Super Bowl wins to their name, it should be a very good game. Since I’m still a diehard Buffalo fan, I would love to see the Broncos beat the Patriots!

Last week I started my coverage of SuperBowl 48 with this post  and mentioned that the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl Contest is back for it’s 8th year in a row. To back track, at the end of 2006 more than 1,000 videos were submitted to the first Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” online contest. From these entries two :30 spots  were chosen to actually run during commercial breaks of the Super Bowl and the “Live the Flavor” spot was awarded the grand prize. Back then this promotion really brought user-generated content contest up to a mass scale. Most of us marketers had been following this trend since then and this particular promotion has been featured in just about every presentation and article on the subject since then.

Each year the Contest has gotten bigger and bigger and new twists have been added. Last year Frito-Lay announced that they had over 3,500 entries submitted which they ran on Facebook as a contest app. This year they are back online and for the first time the Crash the Super Bowl contest has accepted international entries. Basically anyone who lives in a country where Doritos are sold could participate. The Official Rules are written in six different languages and 35 different countries are listed as eligible to enter. All submissions must be in English however if they do include any printed or spoken words.

Here are the five 2014 Finalists that have been selected and who were posted to the contest site back on January 4 when the voting started: “Time Machine” by Ryan Andersen of Scottsdale, Arizona, “Office Thief” by Chris Capel of Valencia, California, “The Cowboy Kid” by Amber Gill of Ladera Ranch, California, “Breakroom Ostrich” by Eric Haviv of Atlanta, Georgia and “Finger Cleaner” by Thomas Noakes of Sydney, Australia.

Votes will be accepted up until January 29. At that time the submission with the highest number of votes will be determined as the Grand Prize Winner and of the remaining four, the Sponsor will select one submission which will be determined as the Second Prize Winner. These two submissions will be aired sometime during the SuperBowl XLVIII broadcast. The Grand Prize Winner also receives a $1,000,000 prize and the Second Prize Winner receives $50,000.

All five Finalists will receive a game trip for themselves and a guest to attend the Super Bowl Game on Feb. 2 in New Jersey. The trip consists of round-trip air transportation, 5 night hotel accommodations in a hotel in or around New York and tickets to the game. Grand prize and Second Prize Winners also have an optional Avengers Consultant prize opportunity which invites them to join the crew on the set of Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron as a consultant which will take place in London, England.

Now I promised to tell you which Finalist I voted for. Even though I think Cowboy Kid may have a good chance of winning since it includes a cute kid and an animal, I had to vote for Time Machine. Yes, it also has a cute kid and a pet, a Golden Retriever no less! I think it is also very entertaining and memorable. It includes humor and fun, and tugs at our heartstrings by providing us with happy memories of childhood, before the digital age. The “Today” show gave it a real positive review when the Finalists were first announced. So I hope it makes it to the broadcast.

Also I have to agree with many of the comments I have read about the “Finger Cleaner ” which it is disgusting. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth (pun intended) and no way makes me want to eat Doritos. However, there are also many people that appear to think this is hilarious. We’ll see. Cast your vote now! It was just announced that the Red Hot Chili Peppers will join Bruno Mars in the Pepsi Super Bowl Half Time Show.