• The Washington Post, Thursday, February 1, 2007 10:45 AM

Super Bowl XLI between the Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis Colts will feature four ads created by (so-called) amateurs. The big game is the biggest ad showcase of the year, so why not follow up 2006, the year of You, according to Time Magazine, with ads created by us?

And why not save a bundle of money? Advertisers are paying more than $2.6 million for 30-second spots, each of which could easily cost $1 million or more to create. If you incentivize consumers to create something for your brand by say, granting the winner $10,000 and a free VIP trip to the big game, you may have just clipped your Super Bowl cost by more than one-third. And for the winner--even for those who don't win--the result could be the beginning of a new career in advertising.

Consider 22-year old Weston Phillips, a Doritos competition finalist, who spent $12.79 to make his ad, "Live the Flavor," which shows how a couple met thanks to Doritos. General Motors picked talented marketing and graphic-design students from places like Elon University, San Jose State and the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee out of a pool of 820 teams to create ads for Chevy. Given a reality TV feel, Chevy films their struggles to come up with and create the ads.

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