Every year, the Super Bowl is renowned for the commercials it plays, but this year’s Super Bowl was extra special for the consumer created commercials Doritos ran. Doritos’ “Crash the Super Bowl Challenge” began in September and drew 1,070 entries, which Doritos trimmed to five before consumers voted for the winner. As it turns out, the vote was so close that Doritos decided to run two spots, including “Check Out Girl” by Kristin Dehnert, which ran during the second quarter.
“When I heard about the Super Bowl competition, it blew my mind that the opportunity was out there, so I put on my marketing hat and my goofy creative hat to make sure our spot was specific to the brand,” Dehnert said. Dehnert, who lives in Pacific Palisades, CA, and works as a location manager, did research to learn about the Doritos flavors with funny names and used them in the spot, with the check out girl crying “Fiery Habanero” and “Blazing Buffalo Ranch” to the deadpan customer who responds with his own verve as the spot progresses.
Stephanie Lesh-Farrell, an actress found at a casting call, and George Reddick, a friend of Dehnert’s who acted with her before, starred in the spot.
It was a dialogue-based spot with no special effects. The soundtrack included ambient background noise and a beeping sound for scanning bags of Doritos at the register.
A Panasonic HVX200 camera was used for the shoot and an Avid Xpress editing system.
The spot was shot at a Super A Foods store in Los Angeles. “I know the guy who runs the store and I pitched the idea, and he said you can shoot at the store if you do it after hours,” Dehnert said. “So we shot it on a Saturday night from 11 to 3 am and didn’t stop until we were laughing ourselves silly.”
Jason McDonnell, Doritos director of marketing, said the Super Bowl advertising gave consumers “the chance to celebrate their passion, develop creative content and put their own touch on it.” Dehnert’s touch won her incredible recognition as the creator of one of the two best consumer-made spots in a national contest that makes advertising history.
All five finalist spots will play on national TV through March, Doritos announced on Monday.
Supreme Court Allows Multibillion-Dollar Class Action Lawsuit To Proceed Against Meta
The Supreme Court is allowing a multibillion-dollar class action investors' lawsuit to proceed against Facebook parent Meta, stemming from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm.
The justices heard arguments in November in Meta's bid to shut down the lawsuit. On Friday, they decided that they were wrong to take up the case in the first place.
The high court dismissed the company's appeal, leaving in place an appellate ruling allowing the case to go forward.
Investors allege that Meta did not fully disclose the risks that Facebook users' personal information would be misused by Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump 's first successful Republican presidential campaign in 2016.
Inadequacy of the disclosures led to two significant price drops in the price of the company's shares in 2018, after the public learned about the extent of the privacy scandal, the investors say.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the company was disappointed by the court's action. "The plaintiff's claims are baseless and we will continue to defend ourselves as this case is considered by the District Court," Stone said in an emailed statement.
Meta already has paid a $5.1 billion fine and reached a $725 million privacy settlement with users.
Cambridge Analytica had ties to Trump political strategist Steve Bannon. It had paid a Facebook app developer for access to the personal information of about 87 million Facebook users. That data was then used to target U.S. voters during the 2016 campaign.
The lawsuit is one of two high court cases involving class-action lawsuits against tech companies. The justices also are wrestling with whether to shut down a class action against Nvidia.... Read More