• by Sarah Mahoney , Staff Writer @mahoney_sarah, January 10, 2025

One of the "Crash the Super Bowl" contest submissions 

When Doritos decided to revive its “Crash the Super Bowl” consumer ad contest after an eight-year break, the team did some Doomsday planning. There was always the chance America’s chip lovers would turn out to be less creative than they used to be.

At the time of the announcement, James Wade, senior director of marketing at Doritos, acknowledged the contest was generating a fair amount of heartburn for the Pepsi-owned brand, but still Doritos was all in. “This is a Plan A program,” he told CPG Insider back in September. “We will air just one spot, and it will be a consumer-created spot. That’s the risk we’re taking.”

CPG Insider caught up with him this morning to see how the contest is advancing so far.

Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

CPG Insider: When we spoke late last year, you admitted there was a possibility that entries wouldn’t be that strong or you might have to award the $1 million prize to a real stinker. Are you still nervous now that you’ve had time to evaluate the submissions?

James Wade: No! I did have some anxiety up until the day before the contest closed. I mean, you just didn't know. Then we got such a big influx at the end -- more than 2,000 submissions.

There’s such creativity and quality, with real insights about the brand -- so much cleverness stood out. And some are unique. I knew there would be wild, weird and strange stuff, and there is. So that all felt good.

And, of course, that made narrowing it down to 25 finalists, which we’ve released, and then the final three -- which we’ll reveal on Jan. 14 for voting -- really hard.

CPG Insider: How did you decide which spots made the cut?

Wade: We have an internal panel of advertising, creative and brand judges. Legal weighed in. And once those three finalists are unveiled, I recuse myself. The fans will decide.

CPG Insider: Are there any ads that -- even if they didn’t make the list of 25 -- you thought were so worthy that you’d go ahead and use them somewhere else?  

Wade: There have been many conversations about that here, and we’ve got some ambition about how to work with some of these creators going forward. It may be obvious, but this program is about so much more than the Super Bowl for us. Some of these entries make sense for other moments, and some are so good they don’t necessarily need a reshoot.

CPG Insider: Are there any notable themes in the submissions? Was AI a big one?

Wade: We had explicitly asked them to steer clear of AI because it can be problematic for copyrights and trademarks. Ashes and urns were big for some reason. We didn’t see as much sci-fi and futuristic stuff as in past contests. Many of them tapped into things we’ve never talked about openly as a brand -- like the way chips make your breath smell or the noises people make when eating.

We also saw a lot of genie spots. People are into wish fulfillment.

CPG Insider: That’s funny. And I’m sure each of those creators thought the idea of a genie selling Doritos was utterly original.

Wade: Completely. You see that in many artistic spaces, where folks get to the same idea separately. So, it's fun to see that on a scale like this.

CPG Insider: How are you assessing the campaign’s impact?

Wade: The number of consumer votes in the next two weeks is No. 1 for me. What we're striving for is social conversation. With a celebrity-driven ad, I might have considered traditional earned media the key to success. For this, I want engagement on social, especially TikTok and Instagram. That will tell us much about whether the ad can break through with the general population.

The voting provides validation at a scale much bigger than any consumer test I can run. And, of course, we do run backend tests on hundreds of spots. But at the end of the day, do people care enough to go vote and watch these ads before the Super Bowl?

We recognize that many folks who watch the ad on game day will have no idea it’s there due to a contest. They will just see the spot and take it at face value. Hopefully, they will love it.

CPG Insider: One of the most successful campaigns last year, “Michael CeraVe,” also had an elaborate pre-game approach that, in some ways, worked without viewing the Super Bowl ad at all, which could be true for Doritos. Will more brands start thinking this way?

Wade: The Super Bowl is the biggest live event, absolutely. But there's such a huge audience outside of it that we need to take along. My consumers are everywhere. If all I did was talk to them on Super Bowl Sunday, I’d never break through.

That’s why we’re running ads through the playoffs that ask people to vote. We want involvement. We want people to go to watch parties and say, “I voted for that ad.” It increases the chances we’ll break through in a mainstream way.

CPG Insider: Those ads will run for the next two weeks?

Wade: Yes. We’ve got other content, too, including some podcasts. We just want to make sure that if you're interested in football, you will hear about this contest. If you are interested in Doritos, you'll hear about it. And if you're interested in funny, weird ads, you'll hear about it.

CPG Insider: The Super Bowl continues to be advertising’s biggest crap shoot. Of the dozens of brands that buy these spots, only a handful get the buzz companies hope for. Maybe three or four get panned. The rest just get overlooked. Do you know how Doritos will handle it if this year’s ad is just a dud and doesn’t get the attention you think it should?

Wade: I feel confident that even if we stopped this campaign the day before the Super Bowl, it would have been strong. The Super Bowl will be the cherry on top.

I do think we have an advantage in our consistency. We’ve been on the Super Bowl for 25 years, creating a positive perception and excitement -- people want to see what the brand is doing.

CPG Insider: Where will you be watching?

Wade: I will be at the game with the winner! And we’ll be capturing content with them, with their family. But we’ve got a war room here, and I’m sure my phone will be buzzing as they tell me how viewers are reacting in real time.