A Doritos-clad samurai is bringing fame and a touch of fortune to two Minnesota filmmakers after their ad won a spot in this year's Super Bowl.
Cole Koehler and Ben Krueger watched the game from a suite along with five other finalists in the Doritos commercial contest. It wasn't until the final three minutes of the game that Koehler and Krueger's ad was aired, but the duo says it left them speechless.
"When it aired I hit the ceiling. I couldn't speak. I can't really describe the feeling," Koehler said in a phone interview from Miami.
Doritos initally said only three of the final five contest ads would air during the Super Bowl. By the middle of the second quarter, three ads had already run.
"We all thought that was it," says Koehler. "We were totally bummed."
Then officials from Doritos made a surprise announcement to the contestants in the suite: one more ad would run sometime in the third or fourth quarter. Krueger and Koehler's "Snack Attack Samurai" spot won that final coveted spot, though the pair didn't walk away with the final $1 million prize.
The duo's commercial features a Doritos-clad Samurai attacking two friends who stole his bag of Doritos while at the gym. Produced locally and starring local actors, the ad was made on a shoestring budget in just under a week.
Koehler and Krueger won $25,000 for making it to the finals of the Super Bowl ad competition. Both are assistants in production companies in the Twin Cities, though neither has produced an ad on their own. They plan to use that money to start their own production company.
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