2009 PRO Awards: Doritos Crash the Super Bowl

Agency: The Marketing Arm
Client: Frito-Lay/Doritos

Doritos wanted to help consumers “Crash the Super Bowl” by letting them create their own ads. This promotion worked well in 2007, with the one exception that they had not been able to shake Budweiser from the top position. To make the program bigger and better in 2008, Doritos challenged consumers to take the leading spot (based on USA Today Ad Meter statistics) and win $1 million.

Fans submitted their videos on crashthesuperbowl.com for a chance to win a spot during the Super Bowl. Doritos secured a story in The Wall Street Journal to publicize the program’s launch. They targeted college newspapers, top film schools and large universities; utilized viral video/photo websites (such as Flickr and YouTube) and targeted blogs and podcasts that reach their core consumers (age 16-24). In addition, an audio news release was distributed on 1,000+ national youth radio shows.

Consumers voted online for their favorite ad among the five finalists. The chosen ad, “Free Doritos”, succeeded in achieving the number one spot on USA Today’s ad meter, as well as YouTube Super Vote and the MSNBC Ad Poll. It was also the most Twittered Super Bowl ad. Overall publicity generated 1.4 billion media impressions — more than double the company’s goal. Also, Free Doritos aired thousands of times as part of news coverage at no cost to Frito-Lay.

Return to the list of 2009 Pro Awards winners.