If some of this year's Super Bowl commercials look a bit, well, amateurish, there's good reason.

A handful of companies have turned to average Joes and Janes to create ads to air Sunday afternoon during the NFL's championship game—a dicey proposition with CBS charging $2.6 million for a 30-second spot, or $86,667 a second.

Most advertisers are still relying on high-priced ad agencies to produce commercials for the year's most-watched sporting event. But PepsiCo's Frito-Lay unit and General Motors are among those betting that ads created or inspired by everyday people will resonate with consumers and pull them to Web sites promoting contests and products.

“It can be very risky to turn over control of your advertising to consumers because it's very hard to do good advertising,” said Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Ill. “It's very tough to produce something that delivers a message, is well-branded and likeable all at the same time.”

There's no bigger stage for advertisers than the Super Bowl, which this year features the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears. Last year's game drew 90.1 million U.S. viewers – more than double the 37.4 million who watched the season opener of “American Idol” this month.

In past years, the TV commercials have generated nearly as much hype and attention as the Super Bowl itself. Who could forget a battered Mean Joe Greene getting a Coke from a young fan, Apple's masterful reworking of “1984” or Larry Bird and Michael Jordan playing an ever-improbable game of horse for a Big Mac that ends with a shot from the top of the Sears Tower?

The decision by some companies to let amateurs pitch their products fuses two media trends that give everyday people a chance at stardom: “reality TV” programs such as “American Idol” and Web sites, such as YouTube, where users post video clips.

“This is an example of blurring advertising and experience,” said Rachel Thomas, marketing director and brand strategist for MiresBall, a San Diego-based brand design firm.

When that happens, average people become marketing allies of companies, often unintentionally, she said. “Savvy marketers are looking for ways to allow the individual to play a role in marketing their brand.”

The Internet is fueling the trend with sites filled with user-generated content that includes videos, photos, audio files, news and Web logs, or blogs.

Advertisers are trying to find ways to make their brands and products a part of that information exchange. A majority of marketers surveyed recently by MiresBall identified word of mouth, customer interactivity and the Web as the most effective ways to communicate their brand.

One example of the marriage of marketing and high-tech consumer interaction is Apple's Mac-versus-PC advertising campaign, which has been parodied in homemade videos posted on YouTube.

Super Bowl advertisers are trying to make the same kind of connection.

“We literally said we're going to give the people the power. We're going to put consumers in the driver's seat,” said Jason McDonnell, director of marketing for Doritos, the Frito-Lay brand that launched a Super Bowl advertising competition last fall.

More than 1,000 people submitted 30-second commercials between October and December. The company picked five finalists and then asked people to vote online for their favorite. The winner will run unedited in the first quarter.

Others are taking a more cautious approach.

General Motors and the NFL hired ad agencies to turn winning ideas from amateurs into polished commercials. GM received more than 800 entries from college students, and the NFL listened to pitches from 1,700 people who attended four events at pro football stadiums around the country.

The NFL winner, former marketing firm sales director Gino Bona from Portsmouth, N.H., pitched an ad featuring depressed NFL fans mourning the end of the football season. Scenes for the commercial were shot last week at a Van Nuys car wash and at other locations in the Los Angeles area, NFL spokesman Matt Hill said.

The NFL spot will air during the commercial break at the two-minute warning near the end of the game. The ad produced from the winning GM entry will be aired Friday during a 9 p.m. special on CBS reviewing the best Super Bowl commercials of all time.

Snickers maker Masterfoods will debut an ad for the candy bar during the the first half of the Super Bowl and ask viewers to go online to vote for one of three alternate endings to air later in February.

Several hundred people entered Bayer's contest to update the classic “plop, plop, fizz, fizz” jingle for Alka-Seltzer, including Greg McKinney, a bass guitar player and music minister at St. Stephen's Cathedral Church of God in Christ in San Diego's Valencia Park neighborhood.

McKinney, 44, who has played and produced music professionally for years, heard about the contest from a fellow musician. “I thought, this might be a good opportunity,” he said recently.

McKinney didn't want his entry to sound too much like the old Alka-Seltzer jingle – which hasn't appeared on TV for 26 years – and he didn't want it to sound like a song heard on the radio.

“Because most of the Super Bowl (audience) is young male, I kind of wanted to do something that was dance-oriented and party-oriented,” he said. “Something youthful. Kind of Justin Timberlakeish.”

McKinney, whose parents Bishop George D. McKinney and the late Jean McKinney founded St. Stephen's, used music production equipment to create the jingle by layering prerecorded tracks. “I started with drum sounds to set the mood. Then I added the base and synthesizer sounds,” he said.

He recorded the vocals last, using his voice rather than hiring a studio singer. “I'm not my favorite vocalist, but I can get the job done,” he said.

The end product, a 30-second, hypnotic techno-dance tune, took McKinney about six hours to make.

The first people to hear the entry were his three sons, all musicians ranging in age from 17 to 20.

“They liked it a lot,” McKinney said. “They were like, 'That's tight, Dad.' ”

McKinney didn't win the competition, but his entry is featured on the Alka-Seltzer contest Web site (www.plopplopfizzfizz.com).

Consumers can expect more homemade commercials from advertisers in the coming months, said George Belch, a marketing and advertising professor at San Diego State University.

“If there's one thing you can say about marketers and advertisers, it's that they are imitators,” he said. “If (amateur ads) resonate with consumers, you could see a lot of this for a while.”

Calkins, the Northwestern professor, said the Super Bowl contests are part of a larger movement by companies to let customers play a more direct role in shaping their marketing strategies.

But he doesn't expect novices to completely replace Madison Avenue, noting that many of this year's Super Bowl ad contestants have advertising and marketing backgrounds.

“They're not people in the back yard pulling out a camera and shooting a Doritos commercial,” Calkins said. “That's not who really wins these contests.”