Doritos' Crash the Super Bowl Ad

Doritos's 'Crash the Super Bowl' ad was created by one of their fans. How risky is it to allow a fan to create a commercial that will run in such an expensive time slot? It's not risky at all, if you consider all the publicity that Doritos got for the competition. Besides that, the commercial actually turned out very well.

The Doritos ad features a pretty young man driving along. As he reaches for the bag of Doritos on the passenger's seat, he notices a pretty girl walking along with her own bag. She turns, holds up her bag of Doritos, smiles, and is rewarded with the label 'Spicy'. He is clearly not expecting this. His return smile is a little closer to a grimace, earning him the label "cheesy".

Perhaps Mr. Cheesy should have been paying more attention to traffic than to Ms. Spicy. He quickly brings up the next popular Doritos adjective, "crunchy", by crashing into the vehicle in front of him.

Ms. Spicy turns out to be multi-talented. Her traffic-stopping run to his aid leaves her also deemed "bold". There is a moment of contemplation - is she a triple threat? Sadly, no, her attempt at "smooth" fails as she falls in the parking lot.

So we are left with Spicy, Cheesy, Crunchy, and Bold, an apt description for Doritos.

This commercial is most likely to appeal to young guys, which isn't surprising. 18-to-34 seems to be the popular demographic and the Super Bowl is generally considered a guy-oriented program. Does it have enough appeal to stick Doritos in the heads of many guys?

The Doritos ad was not very original or inventive. It brings to mind older Taco Bell ads which used the same style of real life and cartoon-like single color screens. It was highly impressive for a fan-created piece, though.

There was some stiff competition for attention among the ads, and this is not likely to hit the number one spot on any list. It was, however, one of few snack ads, and chances are at least a few people who weren't already munching Doritos noticed their absence.

While it may not be one for the water cooler, it was worth watching. I'm sure it got a few people's attention. The real pull, however, is likely to come from the competition. A little hype never hurts even the most fabulous of ads, so it could definitely help cement this one.