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This year's Superbowl watch as much for the ads as for the sport (well by some anyway) was sadly lacking in that memorable stand out commercial that we all end up talking about. The fact of the matter is that despite the astronomically high price tag ($2.6 million per 30 second spot at the top end, in case you missed it) the commercials were ok at best - many being commercials that had already been running. But here we are anyway talking about the ads. I'll leave most of the conversation to others who are covering it nicely (here and here for starters), but I do have to talk about the Doritos ad which was created by amateurs and picked to air during the first quarter of the game. It was Fred Wilson's favorite commercial of the game. Check it out if you somehow missed it:

Now I don't truly have any problem with the ad itself - its a clever simple premise executed in a professional way, period (and its funny). It deserved to be aired and I'm glad the small 5 person team who made it will be getting some buzz for themselves. But I d have a problem with the sound-bites being used to position this commercial. Its only Tuesday and I have already seen this ad referred to no less than 10 times (in print, television, and web posts) as the "$12 Superbowl ad" (even Fred mentions it in his post). I thought this was some misconception that was being passed along by the media, but I saw the group interviewed on the Today show yesterday where they themselves mention the only budget being the bags of Dorito's used as props (and lunch apparently). It's even posted as a note form them on the original submission.

As a person who often has to pull together budgets for both video and interactive projects, I was shocked to here this "fact" tossed around so garrulously. This, to me is like saying your car only cost $30 because thats what you spent on the beaded seat covers. It's a fairly near sighted view of just how much time and energy goes into turning a great idea into an equally great project. This ad obviously cost more than $12 to make, as others have already pointed out.

Let's count up a second all the things that I felt were missing (if this was being done directly for an agency):

-The camera or camera rental
-The editing equipment or its rental
-The car
-Permits
-Insurance on EVERYTHING
-Time spent scripting and choreographing the scene
-Payscale for 5 people (cast & crew) for the day the shoot happened
-An actual meal for those involved

And thats just for the ACTUAL creation of this spot, I'm leaving out the 5 other ideas you had to pitch and storyboard and all the meetings that went into winning the project, then checking in to make sure it would get delivered on time - let's just stay focused on this one project. Even not accounting for their time, there is equipment costs that need to be considered. And I don't agree with the excuse that they already owned the equipment they used - a professional usually has at least part of the equipment they plan to use for a project if they are lucky, and they rent the rest if its a paying gig.

Why did this bother me so much? Well first of all, its just a silly factoid - remember the ad because it was clever and done by non-professionals on a shoestring, but don't claim something that is so disprovable and dismissible. It discredits all the hard working creative professionals who are trying very hard to earn a living making commercials (or web sites, or anything else that requires both creativity on behalf of someone other than yourself). And frankly my little five man troupe, you're not doing yourself any favors here either. If you actually do go into this field for a living, imagine the fun of having the repeated line "Well if you could do a Superbowl ad for $12, why does this cost so much??" thrown at you by clients.

Ok, ok, my rant is over - congratulations to Five Points Productions for winning - you did a good job and you're getting some great exposure because of it - give yourselves credit for that, not for being the cheapest date.