Crash the Super Bowl Contest
Payton Costenbader
Marketing Editor
The Superbowl is the largest American sporting event drawing the attention of over a hundred million viewers each year. Though the focus of the iconic first Sunday in February is the football game, many viewers tune in just for the commercial advertisements and the halftime show. The marketing opportunity that the Superbowl poses towards companies is unmatched. Data derived from PR Newswire shows that 41% of surveyed consumers purchased products after being influenced by the Superbowl advertisements. This event is a massive opportunity for brands to increase their awareness and visibility among households across America. Frito-Lay has taken this opportunity to increase their connection with consumers even further and proposed their Crash the Super Bowl competition.
The Crash the Super Bowl contest is an opportunity for consumers to create their own Doritos commercial that will be aired during the game. In addition to airing the ad, Doritos offered a cash prize ranging from $400,000 to $1,000,000. This competition ran from 2006 until 2016 when the company decided to conclude the competition in order to take the creative minds of their consumers in a different direction. The last winner of the contest in 2016 created Dorito Dogs, a commercial that featured three dogs in a trench coat purchasing Doritos at a grocery store. This last commercial marked the beginning of the competition’s hiatus, but that ends now. Frito-Lay has brought the competition back for the 2025 Super Bowl.
Due to the advancements in technology that have been made since 2016, Frito-Lay had to include new rules to ensure that the competition was saved. The most notable of the new regulations included absolutely no tolerance for artificial intelligence. The script, final product and any intermediate steps taken to produce the 30 second advertisement must be entirely original work. The company also referenced old winning advertisements, such as “Goat 4 Sale” and “slap.” These were given as examples to motivate people to top the iconic past of the competition and create new, memorable advertisements. During the hiatus period the company received backlash for the lack of creativity in their ads, using celebrity appearances to substitute for creative storylines.
Dylan Bradshaw of Ohio was the lucky winner of the 2025 competition, winning $1,000,000 for his creative advertisement. Bradshaw and his co-director, Nate Norell, will be flown out to New Orleans to watch their commercial air live at Super Bowl LIX.
Contact Payton at costenpa@shu.edu