puff pieces and what's coming out of the Doritos corporate gloryhole - for aspiring filmmakers

One magazine I never like to read is the free publication FLM where the director's of indie films sound off about their projects. This shit will make you wanna vomit. Who pays to put this mag out? Well there are two good pieces in this month's issue (portions of it on-line), one with director Kevin Macdonald on Last King of Scotland and one on American Hardcore. Note to future directors: try harder not to sound like pussies and you guys talking about sex doesn't do shit for me.

New topic - worse: I really like the staff and teachers at the school where I take my film classes, however I found on the bulletin board a web printout of yet another crappy film competition - and what's more it was marked with a sharpee with something like "Hey guys, you could totally do this and win!" What is it that got the department coordinator all excited? A chance to make to make a Doritos commercial that is will air during a 30 second Super Bowl spot. Ok, yes winning this could get you a real job. Yes, being in the top 5 could get you some prize money - but think about all the idiot film students nationwide crafting out their little odes to Doritos. Ok, so their buddies can watch watch this shit on Yahoo! Video and laugh, cause commercials are funny right? Well no, commercials are not that funny and I can think of a lot of better stuff to watch on-line than a flood of PG-rated Doritos commercials. Yet I am not a die hard Doritos fan, though PepsiCo seems to be sure these exist, these awesome people who define themselves by brands of food that they eat.

I can't find the exact same pitch that was posted on the board, but this article at CNNmoney is sufficiently full of fabricated excitement and faggy quotes about "phenomenons", "user-generated video craze", "the reality driven world", and another one from the VP of marketing "today we are most inspired by the people who love Doritos chips". Here is what ought to be done about these people. Grab the VP, his interns, the guy who wrote this shit at CNNmoney, and take them all down to the local indie movie theater's men's room - you might recall I mentioned the stall with the glory hole. One by one, force each man's head down on the dick, I don't care if it's an AIDS dick, a Hep C dick, whatever. Don't let them go till they swallow. I propose this as the cure to PepsiCo's wacky on-line, D.I.Y., aspiring filmmaker, marketing campaign.

Now you ask, "Warren, what makes you so pure, did you not just shoot a TV commercial this weekend and not get paid for it?" Well yes, but there was no budget, but wait, it is THE commercial, not a submission to a contest. I'm was taken advantage of on a much, much, smaller scale and the odds of it paying off for me are much better - better than being one of a million camcorder nerds who do free work for multinational PepsiCo.

Here is the complete text of the article, break out the barf bags once again:

Doritos: You create our Super Bowl commercial Snack food maker issues challenge to consumers. The best user-generated commercial for Doritos will air in next year's Super Bowl.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Ever watch a lousy TV commercial and think that you could do a better job than the marketing agency who was probably paid a big fat fee?

Well, Doritos will give you a chance to show why you're more creative than Madison Avenue...and on the world's biggest stage for advertising, the Super Bowl.

Pepsi's Frito-Lay division is launching an unusual promotion for Doritos: average consumers will have the chance to create a commercial that will air during next year's Super Bowl.

Doritos, the snack food made by PepsiCo's (Charts) Frito-Lay division, announced on Thursday that it wants ordinary consumers to submit ads for Doritos between October 2 and December 1 and that the best ad will air during the Super Bowl, an event that last year was viewed by more than 90 million people in the U.S.

The promotion is being done in conjunction with Yahoo! Video, the online video site owned by the popular search engine. The aspiring commercial directors can use tools from Yahoo (Charts) to create and upload their videos.

Doritos will select five finalists in January and those ads will air on Yahoo's video site where people can go to watch and vote for their favorite. A marketing executive from Doritos said that the company is hoping to capitalize on the user-generated video craze.

Privately held YouTube has rapidly become one of the most buzzed about sites on the Web thanks to quirky videos submitted by users. News Corp.'s (Charts) MySpace, Yahoo and Google (Charts) are all trying to cash in on the popularity of user-generated content as well. And last month Sony agreed to buy online video site Grouper.

"In today's increasingly reality-driven world, people are looking for new ways to interact with, help shape and even personalize what is important to them," said Ann Mukherjee, vice president of marketing for Doritos, in a statement. "While we've had great success with star-studded Super Bowl commercials in years past, today we are most inspired by the people who love Doritos chips."

But for Doritos, banking on amateur video directors to make a successful commercial has some big financial risks. Companies spent an average of $2.5 million for a 30-second spot during this year's Super Bowl XL, which aired on Walt Disney (Charts)-owned ABC.

CBS will air Super Bowl XLI on February 4, 2007 and during a media industry conference earlier this week, CBS (Charts) CEO Leslie Moonves said his network was already starting to see healthy demand for commercial time during next year's game.

Still, one executive of an online video company said that Doritos may start a trend, namely that having consumers make their commercials could be a much cheaper way to advertise than hiring a high-profile ad agency.

"The phenomenon of user-generated content could help advertisers to drive costs down. For that, user video is perfect," said Gary Baker, president of ClipBlast!, a privately held online video search firm. "I'd expect advertisers to take more intriguing risks."