Poptent and the Superbowl

Congratulations to Remy Neymarc and Andrew Neymarc and everyone involved with Poptent’s Dannon OIKOS Greek Yogurt Commercial Broadcast. What a great story with even greater implications for our freelance creative community.
I would so love if Dannon’s spot scored right there with the Doritos spots on the USA Today Ad Meter poll. Even more awesome would be if Dannon barely edged out Doritos for high ranking in the top five. I say this, not because I wish Doritos ill. I say it because there is enough wealth to share where publicity is concerned and Doritos stands to get more than the normal coverage if there is some additional ‘special’ story involved. ‘Crowd Sourcing Crowding Madison Avenue’ is quite the nice story line. What better way to demonstrate it than on the biggest TV advertising stage the world has to offer.

LET ME EXPLAIN:
If both companies rate high in the USATAM, and if Dannon is a close second to Doritos, it may slip through the cracks of the media, as once again Doritos beats all comers. If however Dannon scores high and beats out Doritos, Dannon stands a much better chance of catching the attention of the media. The resulting story would be that ‘crowd sourcing’ is on a meteoric rise and something that mainstream brands need to take a serious look at en masse. Ultimately, we all (in the freelance/crowdsourcing fraternity),  would stand to benefit in a big way and in the very near long term.

I would have loved to have been a visitor to the Dannon set to see what kind of lighting, camera and production techniques Remy and Andrew employed. I loved watching the YouTube video and dug some of the diffusion techniques they had set up, from what I could tell. I would have also loved to re-connect with John Stamos. I had the pleasure of working with him during a week of shooting on the Warner Brothers lot back in 2006. Despite what most of you here in the Video Contest Kingdom have come to know His Highness for, on the W.B. ER set, my work was limited solely to ‘acting’. In fact, the ER experience occurred just prior to my changing careers path from acting to a more comprehensive production career. In my brief traditional acting career I was fortunate to have enjoyed success enough to appreciate the importance of writing and producing ones own content if controlling what you are part of is a priority.

I would bet that this experience with Dannon and Poptent was quite the education for the Neymarc brothers, considering their admission of being self-taught and their relatively young age. (Remy, 21 yrs. and Andrew 23 yrs.). It’s the kind of experience that can help propel talented professionals to the next level. What a great resume addition. BTW, when you get a moment you should check out their website, NEYMARCVISUALS.

Now I have even more reason to watch the Superbowl. I wonder if Dannon knows when it will broadcast. I know when I was a finalist in the Crash The Superbowl contest they let us know the winning spot would air as the 3rd commercial spot immediately following the opening kick-off. At any rate, I will be glued to the USA Today Ad Meter Poll immediately following the game to watch as the final scores are tabulated and posted to the website. This is honestly, very exciting stuff.

To check out some of the behind the scenes action, Danny Winn suggested I post the correlating YouTube video. I thought that was a brilliant idea.

The royal crown is dipped to Dannon, Poptent and the NEYMARC brothers.

The Video Contest King

Let’s help Kickstart Joel Berry

Hey Peeps, on the VCK I occasionally showcase fellow peers creative accomplishments. I do it in part, to help further careers that are largely authentic independent and entrepreneurial efforts, similar to most of us in the freelance videography community.

I hope through this post, to draw attention to a buddy of mine who has taken part in several of the King’s (Jared Cicon Films) video productions, both as crew behind the scenes and as on-camera talent. Joel Berry is a talented writer, actor, producer who, similar to most of us in the freelance community, is trying to carve out for himself a full time career in this entertainment jungle. Joel is a family fan. He is a married father of three little crumb-crunchers. (I use the term crumb-crunchers affectionately, since I used to have four of my own who have since graduated from crumb-crunching to steak-bone gnawing).

I first discovered Joel’s talent through his YouTube channel SweetTeaFilms. On it, Joel Berry plays ‘Tavin Dillard’, a very lovable piece of trailer park refuse who is an avid internet blogger. Tavin is a grass cutting professional (who still lives with his Mee-Maw), who shares through his blogging, the exploits of his Trailer Park world. Tavin is a family friendly character with enough edge and sophistication to satisfy tastes ranging from the cerebral to the flippant. You need to watch more than a single video to fully understand the Tavin character, but even after just a single blog you start to appreciate the solid comedy that Joel Berry has developed. I’ve been a fan for several years now.

Similar to many highly creative individuals on YouTube, I am astounded that after so many years of great comedy, Joel is still sitting on just 7K-8K subscribers. It boggles the mind. Oh, the inequities of the YT Universe.

Joel’s creative expression is not limited to his ‘Tavin’ related production alone. He has acted in several Jared Cicon Films commercials over the last several years. Joel produces ongoing content for Orange County, Ca. communities. He recently traveled to Nashville TN., to film a pilot episode for a TV variety show which he is currently pitching to the industry. Joel recently scored a regional, national commercial for a national Cable Television service provider.

KICKSTARTER and Joel Berry
Joel has taken the leap and decided to take his Tavin Dillard character on the road. He is bringing ‘Tavin’ to live stage venues in several states in the South, (Mississippi, Missouri and Arkansas to name a few). He will execute a multi-state U.S. tour and needs our support to do it. He will be doing it by himself and just one other friend/producer/assistant. The usual expenses related to biting off this type of exploit are what Joel needs kick start help with. (Gas, Motel 8, food etc.). Though a personally risky and time consuming investment for himself and his family, it employs very financially modestly planning, but even Top Ramen costs greenbacks. Joel’s figured he needs just $2,340.00 to make it happen. I’ll tell you though, I know Joel very well, and I would bet that he has probably factored in the most spartan of accommodations/logistics for his journey. On my calculations he will more than likely need closer to 5K-6K to be on the safe side and to have a little bit of ‘fall-back’ money for unseen expenses and emergencies.

I’m hoping that regular readers of the VCK will give what they can to Joel’s ‘Live Tavin Tour’. I’d like to see the figure to reach at least 5K to see that he and his producer get to the five states he plans to travel to, knock em’ dead with Tavin, and return home safely.

If you can spare a few bucks for this great guy who is taking his dreams into his own hands (great example to the rest of us), than go to Joel’s  KICKSTARTER
PAGE, and hook him up. BTW, you get a bunch of Tavin Fan stuff when you make a contribution. Joel Berry is undertaking what most of us which we had the guts to do. Be a part of his odyssey. DONATE!

You can follow Tavin’s progress on the official Sweet Tea Films website.

ARTICLE UPDATE:
Joel met his KICKSTARTER fund raising goal and will be taking ‘Tavin Dillard’ on the road. “WooHoo”!!! Can’t wait to hear the stories from the tour. Congratulations Joel.

Doritos, The NBA, Obama and Affirmative Action

Above are screenshots of the dudes behind the productions that scored little bits of gold in this year’s Crash The SuperBowl. A commercial contest run annually by Doritos (Owned by FritoLays North America, a subsidiary of PepsiCo). Earlier today I was on the Crash the Superbowl (CTSB) site, and was viewing the 2-3 minute interviews of each of these five creatives and something dawned on me, besides the fact that they all seem very professional and arguably very talented and likable chaps. These guys all kind of look alike. They’re all the same approximate age. All except one have good hair. They all speak/articulate well. It’s clear they all know the craft in which they create very well. They all kind of dressed the same too (wardrobe color/style), and if you listen to their interviews, they all know how to talk ‘the talk’ of the business.  They seem to have successfully conformed (either consciously or unconsciously) to what is expected of them in their industry, in an outwardly way, and in a creative way. Otherwise, Doritos would not have recognized them as finalists for the CTSB.

All of these coincidences aside, the bottom line is that Doritos chose these fellows’ commercials, because their content impressed the brand. It was only after the spots impressed the judges that these dudes were identified. So please don’t get the cart before the horse and suggest Doritos was looking for a specific type of person and accordingly went about vetting finalists. That would be absurd, and anyone who suggests such in the comment section of this blog will get an appropriate response.

The question I have for the reader is this: In looking at the make-up (physical appearance), of the five finalists, does it bother anyone that they are all from the same rather narrow societal demographic? Hell, they could be siblings. And it doesn’t bother me at all. Should it? Let’s talk NBA.

I was watching the Lakers play The Jazz last night and saw Kobe Bryant rain 40 points down on Utah, leading his team to victory in overtime at the Delta Center. The game before Kobe scored another 48 points making for back to back 40 point games. I became curious and started to check out his chances of winning the scoring title this year and found out that he was currently in 1st place running a close 2nd to LeBron James. Curious further still, I did some searching to refresh my memory on who had won the NBA scoring title in recent history. Always very interesting to consume tidbits of knowledge from the lives of these very talented Hall of Fame players who have wowed the sports world during each of their respective careers. In doing so I found myself going further and further back until some time in the seventies when I saw the picture of Pistol Pete Maravich. It suddenly dawned on me that I was looking at the picture of a white dude.

I had gone back almost forty years before happening upon  recipient for the highly coveted NBA Scoring Title….who was white! Amazing but true. Was there a racist conspiracy about?

Doritos and the NBA:
I mused while it sunk in that for some reason or other, the NBA scoring Title had been awarded annually, perennially, repeatedly to black males, starting in the mid-seventies to the current date, and without fail. Was there something ‘racist’ going on in the NBA? Hmmmmm. Ok, so my tongue’s in my cheek.

Fact is, where Doritos and the NBA are concerned all the respective awardees just happen to have been the very best at what they were doing, bar none, and were recognized as superior by the organizations to which they submitted themselves. Let me repeat that…….

These awardees were recognized over their peers as the ‘best’ by the organization to which they submitted themselves.

Over the years, those athletes who’ve shown superior scoring skills resulting in the winning of the NBA Scoring Title just happen to be black individuals. These are black men who play the NBA game at a very high level. This year in the CTSB contest, those creatives who won the highest Doritos award, who’ve shown superior creative/production skills just happen to be be white men. White men with superior skills, who understand how to ‘play the game’, to a higher degree than the other 6,000 creatives who accepted the CTSB challenge and came up short, yours truly included. Special favors, conspiratorial agenda, favoritism nor racism factor into the equation in determining who will ‘win’ here. In both cases, only execution of the understood assignment distinguishes the winners from their peers.

Now The Bigger Question:

Michael Jordan won the Scoring Title 10 times. Is that fair? I mean, he’s only one man. Isn’t a single scoring title enough for him?  Shouldn’t we limit the amount of times a person can be rewarded with accolade in any given competition to a single time? Many Doritos Finalists over the years have repeated victory for their superior ability to interpret the Doritos creative brief. Should Doritos have watered down their brand messaging/strength/options by disqualifying these past winners? No. That would be absurd. There are however, a lot of people who think that should be the rule.

Governments and even normally rational citizens often fall into this trap of entitlement posturing. Though very young at the time of it’s incorporation into American society, I sensed there was something fundamentally ‘wrong’ with the Affirmative Action legislation passed in the early 1960s as a remedy for inequities in society. And by the way, keep in mind that affirmative action includes provisions for inequities beyond race stratification. Even as a kid it just didn’t make sense that a person should be given something that they neither earned nor for which they were prepared to accept. I’ve recently read several individuals who explain the follies of affirmative action much better than I could, and I’ll allow them to do so here.

Matt Patterson (columnist for the Washington Post, New York Post and San Francisco Examiner) writes:

“Unfortunately, minorities often suffer so that whites can pat themselves
on the back. Liberals routinely admit minorities to schools for which
they are not qualified, yet take no responsibility for the inevitable
poor performance and high drop-out rates which follow. Liberals don’t
care if these minority students fail; liberals aren’t around to witness
the emotional devastation and deflated self esteem resulting from the
racist policy that is affirmative action. Yes, racist. Holding someone
to a separate standard merely because of the color of his skin — that’s
affirmative action in a nutshell, and if that isn’t racism, then nothing
is. And that is what America did to Obama.“

Yeah, it’s time for the Obama tie-in alluded to in the article header. Relative to Barak Obama’s questionable personal/social history, renowned author and commentator, Norman Podhoretz, in a recent Wall Street Journal article writes:

“Imagine a future historian examining Obama’s pre-presidential life: ushered into and through the Ivy League despite unremarkable grades and test scores along the way; a cushy non-job as a “community organizer”; a brief career as a state legislator devoid of legislative achievement (and in fact nearly devoid of his attention, so often did he vote ”present”); and finally an unaccomplished single term in United States Senate, the entirety of which was devoted to his presidential ambitions. He left no academic legacy in academia, authored no signature legislation as legislator.“

“To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberaldom to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass.” “…because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberaldom [he] was given a pass — held to a lower standard – because of the color of his skin.“

What Norman Podhoretz is expressing here, is we gave a presidency to a man who was ill-equipped to execute the commensurate responsibilities. No wonder Obama embarrasses himself (and our nation) at every turn, with knee jerk comments about racist cops or other world leaders (when he doesn’t know the mic is on). No wonder his divisive communication skills renders him ineffectual at uniting a warring congress. No wonder his foreign policy has lowered our stature in the world community, along with our world credit rating. He just isn’t up to the award of the oval office.

I’ve put it to several of my friends when we debate the matter. Would any white male seeking presidential office have had a chance with a resume similar to Barak’s? Being President is kind of a big responsibility. It requires quite a bit of talent and experience. The kind of fiscal and diplomatic talents necessary to bring both sides of the congressional aisle together (and the American people for that matter) to get the business of the nation done. I offer for perusal, Obama’s executive record leading into his last year as as evidence that he was wholly unprepared for the office given him in the election of 2008. It was the result of citizens en masse assigning to themselves their own brand of affirmative action regardless of the qualifications of this particular candidate of color. After all, he was a good ‘speaker’…when the teleprompter worked.

In the critically acclaimed book by author Shelby Steele he explains the misguided sentiments and destructive results of affirmative action better than any I’ve heard. The book is titled: ‘White Guilt’: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of The Civil rights Era.

Tying it all together:
To score finalist status in the Doritos Crash The SuperBowl contest, or an NBA Scoring Title are arguably, huge personal accomplishments that bring with them reward and opportunity beyond the trophy itself. And though neither of these prizes is as profound as  winning a bid for presidency of the United States of America, all three have something rather extraordinary in common:

None of these awards should ever, EVER be granted to anyone other than the person who is most qualified to receive them. In the real world of business and economics, the NBA and Doritos continue to operate under this modicum of fairness, and they enjoy the success of getting it right, year after year after year.

Politics and Government on the other hand tend to be perpetually mired in emotions, sound bytes, and perceptions that result in all of us being saddled with the debris of the affirmative action experiment. Debris that grows deeper and deeper with each passing year, and we have only ourselves to blame.

When our favorite athlete or sports team gets beaten by a rival in a seven game playoff series, it is usually because the best team won. When we fail to turn the heads of the judges at Doritos with our creative content and are passed over for other creative, it is our own shortcoming, no one elses.  If we don’t deserve the kind of leadership we say we want from our government, it is the result of voter apathy and disconnect. We only get out of anything a reward equal to the effort we put into it. The importance we place on our future, whether it be our own careers or the society around us is dependent on each and every one of us becoming as educated as possible in the matter at hand, and putting forth an effort to make things better.

This includes our careers as freelance creatives. No one ‘deserves’ anything they aren’t qualified to receive. Make yourselves superior to your peers and you’ll achieve the deserved award. In the meantime, hang up the conspiracy theories. They profit us nothing. And get your ass off the couch and vote in an election now and again. If we continue down our current path as a nation, we may find ourselves caring very  little whether the latest edition of the Doritos contest is ‘fair or not’.

The King

Doritos Finalists Selection: Debunking the Conspiracy theorists

Every year, a large amount of disgruntled creatives and/or their friends, girlfriends, associated talent, mothers, hairdressers, bloggers, give their two cents on just how badly Doritos ran the newest edition of the CTSB contest.

And every year the assertions are pretty irrelevant to the how and why that goes into Doritos choosing finalists. Some arguments defend unselected submissions because they are legitimately superior in a PV sense to all other entrants EG: DORITO TRIANGLE. Even in my NTBHO some spots seem funnier than the five finalists du jour, EG: THE DORITOS PROPOSAL, or TAZE THE FLAVOR. I am also aware however that credible debate on the strength of even these three spots could be made, yet I stand by them unapologetically. You see, none of us is the lone arbitor of what is funny, professional looking, well produced, etc. etc. And none of us has the right to tell Doritos what is most appropriate to their brand. I’d like that to set in. It’s like telling a bride what kind/style of dress she’s going to have to wear on her wedding day……..not gonna happen.

Here are the cold, hard to swallow facts.
1. In 2007 Doritos scores 5th place in the USA Today Ad Meter (USATAM).
2. In 2008 Doritos scores 4th place in the USATAM. (And they weren’t even running the contest. They simply ran a spot from the previous year that market tested well).
3. In 2009 Doritos scores 1st and 5th place in the USATAM.
4. In 2010 Doritos scores 2nd place in the USATAM.
5. In 2011 Doritos scores 1st, 4th and 5th in the USATAM.

In five years Doritos has been in the top five of the USA Today Ad Meter Poll, 8 times (EIGHT TIMES!!!). Does any of my fellow peers understand how ridiculously difficulty it is to do something line this? This is unheard of in the world of advertising. In those five years there are only 25 spots to be won in the USATAM and against the best ad AGencies and creatives the world can produce, Doritos (a single brand) took 8/25. Please, please let that sink in.

USA Today uses a sample of people (about 300 individuals) that represent the average viewing public during the Superbowl. Doritos does well with this smattering of sweaty palm joystick/dial holding joe-shmos. These shmos may not be as artsy-minded as you and I. They may not understand the difference between a scrim and a baffle where PVs are concerned, but they represent the masses. Sorry if this makes you lose any faith with the average human being, and their ability to judge quality as compared to your own, but the type of content doritos chooses annually scores in a HUMONGOUS way, every single year. Frankly that you, I or anyone else thinks we know how better to choose finalists is a little haughty.

Any person or ‘blog’ (VCN ) who thinks Doritos is selecting spots because of past relationships with it’s creators is on it’s face, foolish. As a regular contributor to the blog here in the kingdom, Matt Pulliam puts it this way:

“That Doritos would select the ads that rank highest in
marketing test instead of selecting past finalists. Doritos
goal is to make #1, #2, and #3 on the SuperBowl ad meter.
We all know that everyone has a different opinion on which
entries were the funniest, so ad meter marketing tests are the
best way to determine the finalists (what ad exec would want
to risk  his/her job on picking a potential dud without analytical
proof of success). If the test audience favored past finalist,
then it’s only because they make funny, like-able
and memorable spots. It’s not easy!!“

Anyone who rationalizes that Doritos chooses finalists based on ‘favoritism’ probably shouldn’t be in our line of work. It is the kind of reasoning that taints everything else we do in life, including our own content creation. Stop it with the conspiracy theories people and instead focus that negative energy in improving yourselves against the ever-incresing wave of talent that continues to join our freelance force in the advertising world. It’s going to get increasingly more and more competitive as we (freelance creatives) become relevant in our industry.

One more note on why Doritos has such a slick, smooth, efficient and highly successful model that they will probably run again and again and again until they either lose interest or something more effective replaces it:
Doritos is so successful with the CTSB because they advertise….in a myriad of ways through the contest. The 30,000 bags of Doritos that get purchased that run through the checkout line and the resultant conversations, the family and friends who see/consume the sudden increase in Doritos around the house. The cast and crew that eats them all day long as they are everywhere on the set, the individual campaigns that last for a month with these creatives spamming everyone they ever knew on their own email address book, and as many friends as will allow them access to additional address books.

Doritos can’t legally spam anyone concerning their product/brand/business, but there’s nothing illegal about having the five finalists (or 6,000 submittors) do it for them….

And as far as the submissions/content is concerned: Does anyone realize how many ad agencies or production companies would have to be hired by Doritos to produce as much content and/or to give them the same options that the CTSB provides? And to then be able to test and choose only the most appropriate submissions for broadcast, summarily discarding the rest without obligation to compensate any of the creatives? And what is so awesome about the whole exercise, is that we all knowingly give it all to Doritos…for free. We as freelancers agree to all of this. It’s brilliant. If this pisses you off, too bad. Because before the Crash The Superbowl contest came on the scene we had pretty close to ’0′ direct access to any brands. You can thank Doritos for being a catalyst for changing the advertising model in a HUGE way, where video/commercial content is concerned.

The King

SuperBowl or Bust (Doritos Finalists Announced)

Well, there you have it. The horses are out of the barn and galloping their way to Doritos and Superbowl fame, or at least that’s the goal. I get nostalgic this time of year during the CRASH. I remember what it was like as a finalist, to campaign like a zombie day and night during the vote-getting phase of the contest. At the time, I was so ill-equipped to compete with my fellow finalists. In fact, I had used/owned a computer just a single year and owned a cell phone for only two years prior to the inaugural CTSB. Born in 1964 I am on the cusp of the baby-boomer generation. A generation which has not embraced the internet (or other communication technologies) in the way subsequent generations have. I almost missed the boat, but eventually joined the .com insanity with the rest of the world. Not sure if I am better off now than I was 7 years ago, but I have certainly been changed forever.

These five CTSB finalists (production teams) are about to embark on a life changing whirlwind odyssey, whether or not they prevail in being broadcast during the Superbowl. I remember being so bummed out discovering I came in last place in ‘votes’ and that my commercial wasn’t played during the big game. But then pleasantly discovered that Doritos liked our spots enough to run them as regular advertisement throughout the year. I remember the opporutnites that came from scoring my first national commercial. Lot’s of good things happened which eventually allowed the creation of Jared Cicon Films. So, win or lose on the SuperBowl stage, these finalists are already winners.

I was happy to see that two of my five choices for finalists made the Doritos top five: Bird Of Prey and Man’s Best Friend. And yes, though all of the spots are good commercials, IMO, better spots were passed over (no disrespect to the final five).

I am however smart enough to know that just because ‘The King’, on any given matter, thinks something is awesome, doesn’t mean that all of the remaining ‘non’ good-looking-chubby-white-boys-father-of-four-former-east-coast-rock-star-wannabee-baby-boomers will feel the same way, or that they are wrong. heck, it might just be this sole good-looking-chubby-white-boy who is occasionally wrong. After all, my experience in life is singular and so too are the resulting opinions from those experiences. It is why I am such a big proponent of peer review.

What is painfully clear is that all of the finalists chosen by Doritos over the years (and how well they have done on the Ad Meter) bears out that Doritos knows what the they are doing. No one can dispute this.

You don’t do as well in the USA Today Ad meter as often as Doritos has, without knowing what the h**l you are doing in the matter.

It’s funny, just a few minutes after the five finalists were announced, my phone started ‘texting’ off the hook. Peers and friends were lamenting the choices made by Doritos, and venting their frustrations verbally this-away-and-that-away. As predicted they would be, most were unhappy with the final five. Opinions are like fish in the see. countless and many still undiscovered. There is even a fellow blogger by the name of Dan Lamoureux (VideoContestNews) who is hemming and hawwing about how unfair the process is and why people should and shouldn’t have been chosen as finalists, using criteria other than how well they would do on the USA Today Ad Meter. I really wish people like Danny could step back for a second and listen to how pathetic their arguments sound. My pig pet peeve with bloggers like Danny Lamoureux, is that too many of you fellow creative peers who might otherwise go about progressing in positive and productive ways, read drivel like his and mistakenly create mental crutches to fall back on when things don’t go the way you’d like in contests and other freelance matters. In an ever increasing competitive creative fraternity, there is no time for either crutches or drivel.

Doritos, doesn’t care if you are a rank amateur (like I was my first year), or a veteran in the film industry (Kristin Dehnert that same first year), or somewhere in between (Billy Federighi & Brett Snyder the first year). Doritos doesn’t care if you come to the Doritos gas station in a Lamborghini or a mo-ped. They just want you….need you to perform on the highest level possible.

DORITOS WANTS SPOTS THAT CAN COMPETE ON THE BIG STAGE WITH THE BIG BOY AD AGENCIES OF THE REST OF THE WORLD.

Let that sink in for a minute people……and then learn to embrace it. You otherwise chance finding yourself operating from a perpetual piss & moan disposition that could stunt your creative growth and sour you on what is still the greatest opportunity for freelancers bar none world wide. The advertising world has been changing before us for several years now (in large part because of what Doritos introduced). We don’t have time, nor is it helpful to complain about the part of our cup that is yet empty.

Video Contest News (VCN) presents the argument that past finalists shouldn’t be allowed to re-enter the CTSB once they win…., and/or shouldn’t be awarded subsequent years because it’s unfair to win more than once…………

Danny Lamoureux, (editor for the VCN) suggests that hose creatives who have shown skill at nailing the ‘creative brief’ (and BTW helped Doritos with their program’s success) should be barred from entering and/or prevailing in the contest a 2nd time. I don’t subscribe to this kind of narcissistic frustration. It flies in the face of why great things become ‘great’ in the world. It definitely isn’t the premise upon which America was built from the Industrial Revolution forward. It is similar to the mamby-pamby liberal perspective that there should be some arbitrary leveling of the playing field when a certain person or people feel disenfranchised because they can’t compete in any desired field. Is Danny suggesting we institute a sort of ‘Affirmative Action’ for the contest world? Oh yeah, the rest of the advertising world would just love that. That would ‘really’ provide formidable competition to the balance of the advertising industry where no such constraint exists.

Barring past finalists would be akin to the jealous fraternity of creatives at the Director’s Guild barring Stephen Spielberg from producing E.T., becasue he already had his hit with Close Encounters. And….he definitely should not have had the right to steal a disproportianate amount of box office revenue with Indiana Jones, Schindler’s List, Super Eight, etc. etc. etc… How dare he. If Danny had his way, he would explain that Mr. Spielberg is now so well connected, as a result of his past success, that there is no way for his content to compete. the only solution is to bar/censor Mr. Spielberg.

Absurd. Funny too, because after reading a blog post he penned titled “No Fair, You Used Your Skills“, it appears Danny Lamoureux is conflicted on the issue.

HERE’S THE DEAL….

Doritos doesn’t even trust themselves when choosing finalists for the CTSB. Did you hear what I just wrote?

DORITOS DOESN’T EVEN TRUST THEMSELVES WHEN CHOOSING FINALISTS!!!!!

Doritos will select the 25-100 submissions from the gallery that fit the brand requirements for comedy, demographic, image. They then put these spots in front of test market groups in an environment very, VERY similar (wink, wink) to what the real USA Today Ad Meter judges experience on the day of the Superbowl. The USA Today judges are regular people like you and I BTW. Current finalists are rated alongside previous year’s finalists commercials, and and also against spots like Budweiser, E-Trade, Geico, etc. etc., The finalists who fare the best (score the highest) are the ones Doritos chooses to compete during the Superbowl. End of story.

Doritos awards no creative finalist status unless the relative content demonstrates the requisite Ad Meter strength through test panel marketing. Case closed. Whatever way a creative does or doesn’t gain insight, advantage, upper-hand, insider-info, should matter little in the bigger picture. The most important take-away a freelance creative (and reader to this blog) should glean is to do the requisite homework to improve storytelling skills, increase production assets/values, and become steeped in the tradition of the brand to the extent you are capable of creating the type of content they just can’t pass over. Where the field of 6,000+ CTSB submissions is concerned, these five finalists did so.

The freelance genre (our world) is being flooded with new talent on a daily basis. Those creatives who used to be able to produce something half decent a year or two ago and gain some measure of recognition for their work, did so in part, because of the rather diminutive quantity of creatives on the scene at that time (it’s called ‘competition‘ Danny). During 2011 and now in 2012 things are changing even more rapidly and in bigger ways. We are being joined by waves and waves of new creatives who will force us to step up our game or render us obsolete. It is this continuing wave of oncoming talent that will help foster great changes in advertising. There is no free lunch. There is no ‘one-block-of-cheese-per-person’ stipulation. No entitlements here. It is a merit-based environment we must all prepare for. I try to improve daily. We all should. Only this way will we deserve the fruits of those labors that eventually reap reward. The alternative is to whine, complain, point fingers and wallow in mediocrity.

Doritos owes no one any apologies, and deserves much credit for what they do. The King is grateful for access like this on such a large scale, as we all should be.

His Highness