Crash the Super Bowl

The Crash the Super Bowl contest was an annual online commercial competition run by Frito-Lay. Consumers were invited to create their own Doritos ads and each year, at least one fan-made commercial was guaranteed to air during the Super Bowl. In later editions of the contest, Doritos offered bonus prizes ranging from $400,000 to $1,000,000. Eight editions of the Crash the Super Bowl commercial contest were held between 2006 and 2016 and, during that time, fans submitted more than 36,000 entries.

In the fall of 2006, Frito-Lay (with the help of their ad agency, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, and led by their promotional agency, The Marketing Arm) launched the first installment of the Crash the Super Bowl contest. Consumers were tasked with creating 30 second commercials for Doritos products. In all, 1,065 consumer-made ads were submitted and displayed on the contest site, Crashthesuperbowl.com. From those entries, five ads were selected as finalists. The director of each selected ad received a cash prize of $10,000 and a trip for two to Detroit during Super Bowl XLI in February 2007. The five finalist ads were posted to the contest web site for a month-long public vote. The commercial that received the most votes, "Live the Flavor" aired during the 2007 Super Bowl. Though the five 2006–2007 finalists were flown to Detroit, they did not actually attend the Super Bowl. Instead, they watched the game from a private party near the stadium. In a move that has since become a Crash the Super Bowl tradition, no one, not even the finalists, knew which commercials would air before the game. "Live the Flavor" was the first consumer-generated ad to ever air during the Super Bowl and it was ranked the #4 best commercial of the game on the USA Today Ad Meter poll. Later in the game, Frito-Lay surprised the finalists by also airing a second Crash the Super Bowl ad, "Check Out Girl."

In December 2007, Time.com named "Live the Flavor" the 9th best commercial of the year. Frito-Lay's PR company, Ketchum Inc., won a Golden World Award from the International Public Relations Association for their work on the 2006–2007 Crash the Super Bowl contest. According to the IPRA, the competition led to a 12% increase in sales of Doritos in January, 2007 and nearly one million people visited the Crash The Super Bowl website to view the submissions and vote for the finalists. In the months following the Super Bowl, Frito-Lay chose to air all five commercials that had made the Crash the Super Bowl finals.

In the Fall of 2007, Frito-Lay announced that they would once again run the Crash the Super Bowl contest. But instead of being a commercial contest, the 2007–2008 installment would give an aspiring musician the chance to "Crash" the Super Bowl and have their music heard by millions of viewers. The winner would also receive a record deal with Interscope Geffen A&M Records. The winner of the public vote was 22-year-old Kina Grannis and, during Super Bowl XLII, Frito-Lay purchased 60 seconds of commercial time to run a music video featuring Grannis performing part of her original song, "Message From Your Heart." Frito-Lay also chose to air one of the 2006–2007 Crash the Super Bowl finalist ads, "Mouse Trap", during the game.

...
Wikipedia