Doritos revives the “Crash the Super Bowl” contest

• Doritos is once again asking fans to submit their ideas for a Super Bowl ad as part of its “Crash the Super Bowl” contest. One idea will win a spot at the big game and its creator will receive $1 million.
• The brand had already run the contest for ten years, from 2006 to 2016, during which time it received more than 30,000 submissions. The resulting spots were in the top five of USA Today's Ad Meter every year, topping the list four times.
• The brand is promoting the contest with a marketing campaign that will feature two former Crash the Super Bowl finalists, as well as an outdoor ad that will feature fan criticism of the brand's previous Super Bowl commercials.

Nostalgia is all the rage in marketing right now, so it should come as no surprise that Doritos is reviving its “Crash the Super Bowl” contest to get fans excited again. After all, the previous campaign produced some of the brand's most memorable commercials – and sparked some of the strongest reactions on social media.

“When Doritos launched this campaign nearly 20 years ago, it was the first of its kind. It gave fans unprecedented creative control and ownership of our brand – and on the biggest advertising stage of the year,” said Tina Mahal, Senior Vice President of Marketing at PepsiCo Foods North Americain a press release. “We continue to believe that the best ideas come from being bold, taking risks and championing our fans. Now that our fans have more access to creative and advertising tools than ever before, we can't wait to see what they have in store.”

The brand is launching the competition with a campaign that references both the previous competition and fan reactions to some of the spots. In one ad, the goat from the “Goat 4 Sale” commercial watches part of the old spot on TV before turning to the camera and saying that “everybody loved it.” When faced with a social media response calling the ad “so stupid,” the goat reverts to its previous destructive behavior before urging others to do better.

A second spot features one of the stars of the old Super Bowl commercial “Slap.” He recalls the pain of filming the spot, in which a small child violently slaps him, but says a comment calling the spot “as funny as a migraine” was more painful. He urges others to do better.

Both commercials were directed by Ben Callner, who also submitted the original spot for “Goat 4 Sale.”

Doritos' Crash the Super Bowl contest is accepting entries through Nov. 11 through its contest website, DoritosCrash.com. (The site also includes a toolkit for creators with music, logos and other brand assets.) The brand will select the top 25 entries and whittle them down to three finalists in January. Fans will vote for their favorite, and the spot's creator will win $1 million and an all-expenses-paid trip to New Orleans for the Super Bowl on Feb. 9, 2025.