Happening tomorrow, Wednesday, at 9:00 a.m. in Salon A, the PromaxBDA: The Conference session, “PromaxBDA Innovations Committee Presents: Driving Viewers and Revenue with Creative Social TV Strategies,” will address the enormous opportunities in second-screen engagement.

In preparation for that session, we examine a recent campaign that leveraged social media to great success: Doritos’ successful “Crash the Super Bowl” social campaign and its consumer-generated ads.

In 2006, PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay division, in conjunction with lead agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, unveiled a “Crash the Super Bowl” campaign in which consumers were asked to create Doritos TV spots for possible inclusion during the CBS broadcast of Super Bowl XLI on Feb. 4, 2007. The contest was anchored at a Doritos microsite, where people could view the submissions and vote for their favorites. The campaign drew more than 1,000 unique entries, garnered national attention in the media and, according to the brand, helped to increase Doritos sales by 12% in 2007. As a bonus, the winning spot, “Live the Flavor,” ranked No. 4 in the USA TODAY post-Super Bowl Ad Meter.

Frito-Lay tried a slightly different approach for Super Bowl XLII in February 2008, this time asking people to submit original music videos, one of which would be played as part of Doritos’ commercial buy during the game. Although there was no drop-off in the number of submissions from the previous year, the winning spot fared near the bottom of many post-game ad polls. That led PepsiCo to return to its original Crash the Super Bowl strategy for Super Bowl XLIII in February 2009 and each ensuing Super Bowl since. PepsiCo said that it received an increasing number of entries each year through Super Bowl XLVI, and has also seen an increase in media attention.

Beginning in 2008, PepsiCo ramped up its concerted effort to spread the campaign’s message via social media, and also boosted the ante for the overall winning entry from $10,000 during Super Bowl XLI to $1 million for Super Bowl XLIV in February 2010. That year, the number of unique entries topped 1,550. For Super Bowl XLV, the number of entries doubled to more than 3,200; by 2012, there were nearly 5,800 unique entries to the Crash the Super Bowl XLVI contest.

For Super Bowl XLVII this past February, PepsiCo moved its Crash the Super Bowl from a Web microsite to Facebook. Although the number of unique entries was down to 3,500, the move reaped the rewards of the brand’s strategy: The five finalists generated almost 100 million views and the number of fans on Dorito’s Facebook page topped 4 million for the first time.

Also added to the competition was director Michael Bay, who helped to judge the entries and then gave the winner of the Doritos spot that ultimately ranked highest in the post-Super Bowl USA Today Ad Meter ratings the opportunity to work with him on his “Transformers 4” project (although in what capacity has yet to be determined).

After Super Bowl XLVII, which was viewed by more than 108 million people on CBS, Crash the Super Bowl finalists “Fashionista Dad” ranked No. 4 on the post-Game USA Today Ad Meter and “Goat 4 Sale” ranked No. 7

“Almost every metric of the program exceeded what we achieved during the last six years,” Ram Krishnan, VP of marketing for Frito-Lay, told Adweek regarding the Facebook tactic. “That’s the whole reason why we switched. People like to talk about the videos and that reaches their circle of fans.”

Frito-Lay has not yet committed to Crash the Super Bowl XLVIII this February. But analysts say odds are in favor of it happening, especially since the game itself will be played in MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, located less than an hour’s drive from PepsiCo headquarters and where sibling Pepsi is a cornerstone partner.

Barry Janoff is director of sports media marketing initiatives for PromaxBDA. He also is the executive editor for NYSportsJournalism.com which covers national sports marketing, business and media news; and a contributing writer for Yahoo! and MediaPost.

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