Doritos Ads -- More evaluation

Yesterday, I ranked the five final ads in the Doritos "Crash the Superbowl" contest based on my gut reaction. Today I ask more rigorous questions -- and change my ranking slightly...

The first question: Do these ads meet the standards of a "real" agency? To answer this question, I had to travel back in time to put myself in the mindset of my ad agency days, ie, if I were the management supervisor on the Doritos account, would I feel confident presenting these ideas to the client? The answer is a definite yes. In fact, at times I had to present much worse work and try to sell it to my client!

But I don't believe agencies are in danger of being put out of business by Ad Age's "Agency of the Year" -- the consumer. If every brand were to run a contest like this for every new campaign, the novelty would quickly wear off and they would receive no submissions. I do wonder if networks of freelancers will crop up to compete for assignments at a fraction of a Madison Avenue fee.

But agencies will face tough questions about why they need to spend $350,000 or more to shoot an ad when these consumers delivered quite good production values on a shoestring.

The second question: How good are these ads, really? How well do they accomplish Doritos' branding and sales objectives? To answer this, I evaluated the ideas by five criteria; definitions of these criteria and their weightings are below. Here are the grades (click to enlarge):

   

These grades confirm my rating of "Live the Flavor" and "Checkout Girl" as the top two ads, "Duct Tape" and "Chip Lover's Dream" move up but "Mousetrap" drops to the bottom.

In my next installment, I'll do my best to channel Bob Garfield and review each ad.

Here are the definitions and weighting of the criteria:

Strategic fit: 40%. Call me a stickler, I don't care who creates the ad I insist that it fits the brand's strategy. I've made the assumption that their target audience is young men; the rules of the contest allude to attributes like boldness, flavor, and the action the attributes drive.

Quality of idea: 30%. I'm also a believer in the Big Idea: is the fundamental idea driving the ad compelling and engaging?

Art Direction: 10%. Art Directors are responsible for casting, sets, props, and the grapic design of the spot. Grades are based on the quality of these elements.

Copywriting: 10%. Interestingly, only two ads --"Checkout Girl" and "Duct Tape" -- have a spoken script. But copywriters are also responsible for the storyline of the ad. The stronger, tighter, and more complete the story, the higher the grade.

Production: 10%. This criterion includes the quality of the finished video, the acting and direction, and additional special effects included.