A year ago, Joe and Dave Herbert were anxiously waiting to see if their “Free Doritos” commercial would air during the Super Bowl.

Not only did it win the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest, but landed at the top of USA TODAY’s annual Ad Meter, displacing Anheuser-Busch, which had won the past two years, according to the USA TODAY Web site. For their accomplishment, Doritos awarded the duo $1 million.

How did the brothers spend their winnings? “A good portion went to taxes. We gave $100,000 to our cast and crew. Then Dave and I split the rest to invest in our board game and our filmmaking careers,” reports Joe Herbert.

“Outside of that, we've had no real major purchases or anything like that. We are in a unique position to do what we love and want to keep it that way.

“After winning, it has all been a whirlwind of a ride for us, and it keeps getting better. We make commercials professionally now, having done seven more commercials this year, three of which we just finished shooting in Los Angeles a couple weeks ago. We are also in the middle of finalizing a movie deal and should be starting on making a feature film this year!

“Our board game, Triviathon, has been winning really good awards and is on the verge of making a really big splash in the industry. The December issue of Games Magazine announced the top 100 new games headed into 2010 and ranked Triviathon the No. 1 party game in the United States .... We've reached a point now where we are being contacted by independent sales reps, distributors, larger stores and even bigger game companies with an interest in licensing our game.”

Their new job titles are writer/directors of commercials and soon to be movies. “Our goal when we first started teaching ourselves filmmaking was to make movies and that is still our goal. We have a finished a script that we've worked on for two years now, and we have interest from financiers on getting it made with Dave and I to direct the film.

“We're very excited about it and feel confident we can have the same kind of success making a movie that we have had making commercials and look forward to proving it.”

In fact, their goal for the near future includes not only making a movie, but a great movie. “If all goes as it appears to be going so far, it’s likely that we'll be shooting the movie next winter. To most people's surprise, it's not a comedy either. We've written a psychological thriller.”

On Feb. 7, they will be attending Super Bowl 44. “Doritos is paying us to be spokespeople for the contest .... (and) we are doing a lot of media for Doritos as well as a series of videos we shot for the contest promotion that is viewable on the crashthesuperbowl.com Web site.”

In addition, the Herberts will join Doritos officials in the company’s Super Bowl luxury box. Their wives have also been invited to come, and “we’re excited they get to be a part of this experience with us.”

The Batesville resident emphasizes, “Our families have and continue to be very proud of us. They have been completely supportive despite the time it takes us away from them from time to time. It always makes it easier to take risks and do bold new things when you have a good support system behind you.

“We've come to find out more recently our ‘family’ has extended to cover all of Batesville and the surrounding communities, even the state and several people all over the country. We are blessed to have so many great people believe in us and share their enthusiasm for what we're doing with us.”

He adds, “It's impossible for us to tell everyone who has supported us and voted for us how grateful we are to them for it. And we also would like to say that while Dave and I deservedly get a lot of attention for this accomplishment, we did have an amazing cast and crew that helped make the Super Bowl spot the No. 1 Super Bowl commercial of 2009 and, in some sources, the best Super Bowl commercial of the decade.”

Persons wanting to keep updated on what the Herbert Brothers are doing can go to www.herbertbrothers.com. For more information on Triviathon, persons can visit www.triviathon.com.

Diane Raver can be contacted at 812-934-4343, Ext. 114; or diane.raver@ batesvilleheraldtribune.com.