Doritos Ad Meter winners each receive a $1 million bonus
— -- Underdogs ruled in Super Bowl XLVI.
Not only did the New York Giants beat the favored New England Patriots, two aspiring filmmakers bested some of Madison Avenue's top creative minds. Each took a first-place finish in USA TODAY's ratings of the ads — one in the traditional electronic tracking of a consumer focus group's reactions during the game and the other in this year's first-ever social-media voting over two days for the winner of the USA TODAY/Facebook Super Bowl Ad Meter.
The victorious ads — for Doritos — aired in the game after winning the chipmaker's sixth annual consumer-created Super Bowl ad contest. And the wins in the ratings earned the ads' makers more than bragging rights. For nabbing the top spots, Doritos will give each a $1 million bonus.
Kevin Willson's ad — which showed a grandmother sling-shotting a baby across a yard to nab a bag of chips from a taunting kid — won the USA TODAY/Facebook online voting, which closed Tuesday evening, with an average score of 4.33 on a scale of one to five.
Jonathan Friedman's commercial — which featured a murderous Great Dane who bribes a human with Doritos to not tell on him for burying a dead cat — was the favorite of the Super Sunday panel of 286 adults in McLean, Va., and Phoenix who used handheld meters to chart their reactions to game ads. The panelists' average rating was 8.82 out of 10.
Both Friedman and Willson hope the wins will open up more professional filmmaking opportunities. "Commercials and movies, that's my passion," says Willson, who wants to get involved in comedies. "But what I've paid the bills with for the last five to six years is doing humanitarian documentaries for organizations."
And both plan to share the newfound wealth with family, friends and others who helped them create their ads.
"I won't know what it's like to be a millionaire," Willson says. "But obviously (this win) is still amazing."
The Doritos "Crash the Super Bowl" ad contest, which is not affiliated with USA TODAY, has gained popularity each year. The company received more than 6,100 ad entries for this year's game, a 22% rise over last year.
Its consumer-generated commercials also have scored extraordinarily well against the slick professional ads in past Ad Meters. Last year, a Doritos ad tied for first place. In 2010, one took second place, and in 2009, one took the top spot.
As for this year's Doritos commercials, each tapped into a theme sure to resonate with Big Game viewers, says Arthur Bijur, a noted advertising creative director and co-founder of ad agency Workshop.
"They are both about winning," he says. "Everyone is rooting for someone to win."
In the case of the baby ad, the grandma triumphs because she gets the chips. In the other, the dog prevails because he silences the human.
It also helps that dogs and babies — these commercials' stars — have a history of ad success. "Animals and babies are two highly attention-getting elements, because you can have fun with them," Bijur says. "If you endow them with qualities they normally wouldn't have, it's surprising and fun."