Doritos has announced the 25 semi-finalists in this year’s Crash the Super Bowl – in a YouTube compilation. The 2025 Crash the Super Bowl is the first edition of the competition after a nine-year hiatus and the 25 semi-finalists are one for every year Doritos has run and ad in the Super Bowl.

The competition for creators (amateur or professional) has been set up this year as a challenge to “do it better”, responding social media carping about past Doritos Super Bowl commercials. Featured criticisms include “I really HATE this commercial. Like, really. And truly,” “That was so dumb,” “Fire your marketing team, Brutal” and “Doritos commercial? Mid.”

8 hours after the semi-finalist video was uploaded, it had received just one comment, “The road to the final.” Nothing too critical in that.

The ideas with their eye on the prize – that prize being a commercial running in the Super Bowl plus a take-home US$1 million – include a couple who share one set of dentures, a group of mates who shrink themselves to ant-size so they can eat the crumbs at the bottom of the Doritos pack…and conversely, a man whose head and hand grow in size when they touch a Doritos – so he puts one in his pants.

Crash the Super Bowl was devised years before user-generated content became a thing. It took ten years to run out of steam (in 2016) but by then Crash the Super Bowl ads had made it into the USA TODAY Ad Meter’s top five commercials each year – and all the way to #1 four times.

This year’s semi-finalist commercials have all the gloss of professional productions but the winning is judged on its idea.

Past winners include: