Who says ad contests involving user-generated content are dead? Well, OK, I have, repeatedly, but no one ever listens to me. Now, Frito-Lay is raising the stakes by upping the potential payout in its upcoming "Crash the Super Bowl" contest from a paltry $1 million last year to $5 million this year. Doritos is planning to air three UGC ads during the next Super Bowl. Cash prizes will be tied to their performance in USA Today's big-game Ad Meter. The brand is offering $1 million for placing first in Ad Meter, $600,000 for second and $400,000 for third. (If the spots sweep the top three, each of the three will get a $1 million bonus, for a total of $5 million. Though of course, that's not happening.) Madison Avenue is being renamed Madison Avenue Doritos Drive on Thursday, just for the day, to promote the contest and make agency staffers who work there feel even worse about their chosen profession. It's surely cheaper and possibly more lucrative for agencies to get their creatives to enter this contest than to actually pitch the brand. That's probably against the rules, but worth a shot. In a new column on Adweek.com, One Show chairman David Baldwin says it would take a global village to stop ad-contest fakery. You'll never get that many folks to police this Doritos thing. They'll all be watching the game.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

See also:
Helpless tongue scorched by spicy Doritos
Humans reach out to aliens with Doritos ad