Photoplay Films' Tom Noakes and Banjo's Casey Schweikert and Lewis Farrar have progressed to the semi-finals stage in the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl competition for 'Finger Cleaner' and 'Body Cast' – the only two Australian entries to make it to the final 24.
Noakes' 'Finger Cleaner' has gone viral with more than one million hits on YouTube, making it the most viewed entry in the competition so far, and has been consistently placed as one of the highest-rated entries of the 5,000-plus submitted.
Noakes told AdNews the idea for the ad came from "magical super portals or something like that". "I'm just very excited to be a part of [the competition], and a big shout out to the cast and crew – it's a very cliched thing to say but it couldn't have been done without them and the lovely people at Photoplay," he said.
Photoplay Films producer Belinda Dean said: "Doritos typically make comedy scripts and the competition brief was to do something bold and unexpected to tie in with the tag 'For the Bold'. Tom is part of the YouTube generation and he understands that extreme types of humour are what people best respond to and that translates to views."
Banjo's Schweikert said: "Here is a quote that pretty much sums up our immediate reaction: woooooooo hooooooooo! We're so stoked that we've made the semis! Anything after this will be amazing but we're just so excited to have made it this far. A massive thanks to all that helped us get it made, viewed and rated!"
This is the first year the annual crowd-sourcing competition has been opened up to international entries. Fourteen of the semi-finalists are from the US, three from Canada, two from Australia, and one each from Mexico, Hong Kong, Denmark, Israel and South Africa.
Finalists will be announced in one month. The winner gets their commercial aired during the 2014 Super Bowl, a $1 million prize, and the chance to work with Marvel on the set of The Avengers sequel, Age of Ultron. The brainchild of Goodby Silverstein & Partners and The Marketing Arm, the popular competition has been running since 2006.
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