‘Sling Baby’ makes it to the Super Bowl — will fan voting make it the big winner?

The Super Bowl isn’t quite over for Chapman University’s own Justin Folk ’00, film/television.

Folk helped create the soaring Doritos “Sling Baby” ad that aired during the Super Bowl broadcast. The ad was one of two Doritos finalists and now is the leading fan favorite on USA Today’s Super Bowl Ad Meter on Facebook.  Doritos has also put a $1 million cash bonus prize on the line if one of its Doritos ads land the No. 1 spot on either the traditional
USA TODAY Ad Meter or the recently created USA TODAY Facebook Super Bowl Ad Meter.

The official voting will close at 6 p.m. ET Tuesday and the winner will be named that night online at usatoday.com and on Facebook and in Wednesday print editions of USA TODAY.

Sling Baby made it into Doritos’ final five purely on the strength of its merit and earned
ADWEEK’s
admiration. But as in any good game, there’s a bit of strategy to winning a fan favorite contest, says Folk.

“We need people to vote well for ours and not very well for the other ads. More points for us the better,” said Folk, a freelance post production artist.

Folk did the VFX and sound design for Sling Baby, a 31-second ad that pits a wily senior citizen and a cherub-faced baby against a Doritos-hogging little terror of a kid. Adding a sweet touch to the tale is that the baby is Folk’s own 15-month-old son. When a colleague first approached him with the idea of the flying baby concept, Folk was skeptical but game.

“I said, ‘You’re out of your mind – But could it be my son?’”

Although friends held a big Sling Baby Super Bowl Party, Folk says he and  his family opted for a quieter gathering with a few friends.

“We just kind of had a place for the kids to run around. It was a lot of fun and, of course, there were toys everywhere.”

And with a rush of fan voting, there could be a whole lot more.