If you watched the Superbowl last weekend you probably saw a few ads for Doritos. According to Nielsen, the most watched TV ad of all time, (with 116.2 million viewers), featured a Samurai attack with a Dorito chip. Doritos ads also took the top three slots for most-recalled spots and four spots in the top-ten most-liked category.
What you may also have heard is that the Doritos ads were consumer-generated spots. CGM (Consumer Generated Media) has been generating buzz for several years…all the while the Media Emperor’s cloths have begun to look a little thread-bare. The idea behind CGM is that individual consumers often possess great talent and expertise, and if you can just give them an opening, they may deliver the goods. Now, mind you, TV spot production is a big-budget undertaking requiring exceptional creative and technical expertise and should not be attempted by amateurs. In the case of the Doritos ads, the ideas, not the execution, were consumer-generated.
But according to MIT’s Ad Lab blog, the proverbial “average Joe” behind the winning spots is not as average as we might first believe. According to Ad Lab, this year’s winners, and winners from previous years, have come from the ranks of creative professions very near to the TV advertising business. Some of them have been film makers, producers, musicians, and even creative directors. For now, at least, the storybook ending where the little guy finally bests the Madison Avenue advertising machine remains, well, a fairytale.