The Super Bowl is just around the corner, bringing with it lots of food, friends and fun. However, the Super Bowl offers more than just a good football game to the fans of either the San Francisco 49ers, the Baltimore Ravens or football in general. It offers entertainment in the form of commercials.
Doritos has had the Crash the Super Bowl contest for seven consecutive years in which fans can make commercials advertising for Doritos. Doritos then narrows it down to the final five, and visitors to the site can vote on their favorite. The top two most-voted ads will air during the Super Bowl, and the producer of the No. 1 commercial will win $1 million.
Tyler Dixon, a BYU graduate, has had his previous two commercials aired during the Super Bowl, and this year marks his third consecutive year being a finalist for the contest. Even though his commercials have aired during the big game, he hasn’t won the contest and the prize money that goes with it.
“This is my third year in a row being a top five finalist,” Dixon said. “Nobody’s ever done that before. There’s never even been a repeat finalist. I’m too stubborn to give up. I just want to keep working at it and see what happens.”
His two previous commercials may spring to mind. His first, two years ago, called “Finger Licker,” depicted an office break room and a zealous man who desperately wanted his associate’s Doritos. The second, made last year, was called “Pug Attack,” which showed a man teasing his dog through a side door with a bag of Doritos, and the dog’s revenge. This year, Dixon’s ad is called “Road Chip.”
“The idea behind it is the battle of the backseat,” Dixon said. “When mom or dad is driving the car, there’s not much they can do to control what goes on in the backseat, so it’s a story of a little girl and her war over a bag of Doritos with the family dog.”
Dixon’s road to success in making commercials and films is even more amazing considering the odds he has faced with the giant corporations that have loads of resources and money on their hands.
“It’s really David vs. Goliath because we made our add for a little over $2,000 in just a little over six days,” Dixon said. “The average super bowl ad costs close to $2 million and takes almost a year to produce, so those are the odds against us. We’ve done a lot with very little.”
The production cost has gone up for each of his three commercials, with the finger licking commercial costing him $82, and the dog commercial costing $1,300.
The road to success, however, is only beginning for him, as he has goals to not only direct commercials, but write for TV shows and feature films, making it into the competitive film industry.
“The goal is to first be a full-time commercial director, but I have a handful of TV shows and feature film scripts I’ve been working on,” Dixon said. “It’s a hard industry, so I’ve been pushing at it and winning the $1 million would allow me to quit what I’m doing and go to work as a full-time filmmaker. It’s a tremendous opportunity for me.”
People who want to see Dixon’s new ad and vote for the best Doritos commercial can visit doritosroadchip.com and place their vote. With enough votes, Dixon’s ad will air on Super Bowl Sunday for the third consecutive year and help him on his way to realize his goals.
