Once you’re familiar with how Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl contest works, you imagine that a group of filmmakers and their friends are cheering or jeering every time a Doritos ad airs during the game. The contest gives amateur filmmakers a chance to get their ad on the Super Bowl. For the five finalists, they find out whether they win once it airs. They didn’t have to wait long this year, with winners “Goat 4 Sale” {video link no longer active} and “Fashionista Daddy” {video link no longer active} both airing early in the first half.
It’s two years in a row for the team behind “Fashionista Daddy.” They won in 2012 with their ad “Sling Baby,” where a grandmother slingshots a baby for a bag of Doritos. That ad netted them Doritos’ $1 million bonus prize by becoming the number one Super Bowl spot on the USA Today Ad Meter, helped by a smart and relentless social media campaign.
The crew missed out on the big money this year, getting in the Ad Meter top five but not taking the top spot. Instead, they get a smaller cash prize of $25,000, hopefully enough to cover their production costs. The kicker is a chance to really boost their careers, with Doritos giving them the opportunity to work with director Michael Bay on his next Transformers film.
Nate Daniels, who’s now a social media strategist at Ayzenberg, led the campaign for both ads. We interviewed Daniels before this year’s contest on what it takes to not only win and get on the air but also move the needle on the vaunted Ad Meter to go after the $1 million prize.
