A Ball State alumnus has the chance to make a million dollars from one day of work.
Franklin Hines, a TCOM student who graduated from Ball State in 2006, will once again represent the university in the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl Contest.
In 2007 Hines and his team entered the contest and won $10,000 because their commercial was top five out of more than 1,000 entries. If they win, their commercial will be aired during the Super Bowl.
"Last time we made two commercials in two days, but this year, we did two in one day," Hines said.
The contest pits commercials from around the country against one another to see which one comes out on top. USA Today's Ad Meter, an annual survey taken after the Super Bowl airs to see which commercial was liked the most by viewers, will determine the winner of the contest. If it ranks Hines' commercial the top one of all aired, Doritos will give him and his team one million dollars, Hines said.
Hines took care of production and setup of the commercials he's worked on. The commercials were written and directed by Joe and Dave Herbert, owners of Transit Films, an independent film production company based in Batesville.
"Since our success in the first Crash the Super Bowl Contest in 2007, we have been writing down funny ideas for commercials in the event we had opportunities to use them," Joe Herbert said. "When they decided to hold the competition again this year, we looked at some of our ideas and found the ones we thought would be the funniest and work best for the product (Doritos)."
Transit Films' current top-ranked commercial in the contest is titled "Free Doritos" and features two men at the office. One man has a snowglobe that he says is a magic crystal ball.
The man asks it if there will be free Doritos at the office just before hurling the snowglobe into a nearby vending machine containing bags of Doritos.
The man's co-worker then asks the crystal ball if he'll get that promotion he's been wanting before throwing the globe like the previous man, yet with much more dire consequences.
Despite the commercial's comedic tone, plenty of serious work went into not only the commercials themselves, but into research done on the contest in preparation for its production.
"We did a lot of research on the USA Today Ad Meter," Hines said. "How it works and what commercials were typically liked most. We made both of the commercials so they leaned more toward what the Ad Meter said people liked."
Hines said he believes this commercial caters to some of people's innate desires.
"Steve Booth [one of the leading actor's in the commercial] shattering the vending machine is something I'm sure everyone wants to do at some point," Hines said. "The same goes for Dave Hyden [the other lead actor] hitting his boss in the crotch with the snowglobe. Those two are both hilarious."
Of the four other commercials in the top five this year, three are being made in Los Angeles and the other one in New York, all four by major production companies, Hines said. This has spawned a David vs. Goliath situation, Hines said.
"These [these big companies], then there's us from southern Indiana," Hines said. "We're just doing it for fun. We'd still like to make a living off of it though."
Herbert acknowledges Transit Films' position as the underdog, yet he sees it as a possible advantage.
"We won't know how well we did until they air the winning commercial during the Super Bowl, but we do know that having experience in this competition is something we are using as an advantage," Herbert said.
Herbert has noticed a lot of votes and support coming from the Midwest and many small towns across the country.
"People tend to like an underdog story, and with the other finalists being from L.A., L.A., L.A. and New York, we need the support of everyone if we are going to win."
The voting for the contest ends Jan. 25 on Transit Films current Web site at DoritosVote.com.
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