Lending Tree is running a video contest to promote its new “You to the rescue” campaign on the contest site, Tongal. The top prize in this one is 5 grand and you don’t even need to come up with your own idea! Five approved concepts have already been posted and are just waiting for people to film them. The deadline was originally supposed to be a few days ago but even though 20 entries had already been recived, the contest deadline was extended until Monday, November 2nd.
That might mean that none of the 20 submitted entries are good enough to take the top prize. So you have three days to swoop in and win this one! Cancel your Halloween party and get filming.
A few weeks back I blogged about the Home Run Inn Halloween Video Challenge. I love the concept (make a horror film featuring a Home Run Inn Pizza) but hated the execution (the winner of the $2,500 grand prize will be determined by web votes.) This week, Home Run Inn announced the winner of the contest. So…here’s the type of winning video you get when you let “the public” decide the results. The actual video was annoying to embed so click on the image to view.
First Place winner. Prize: $2,500
That is easily one of the worst videos I have ever seen win a contest. So how did this one win? That’s easy to explain actually….the guy who made it apparently just stayed up every night voting for himself over and over again. And what’s amazing is that technically, this wasn’t even cheating! Home Run Inn made it very, very easy for contestants to stuff their own ballot boxes. To vote, users had to register an e-mail address and then they could cast up to 15 VOTES A DAY for the video of their choice. And the rules say absolutely nothing about not creating fake accounts. So technically, the winner of this contest actually played by the rules…the stupid, crappy rules. In the end, the winning video received more than 40,000 votes. Could 2,500 bucks really be worth all that work???
I wasn’t following the voting on this contest but the other contestants were. The comment box that went with the winning video is pretty ugly. People are not happy with the way things went down at all. Some contestants did keep track of the voting and the winner, “Foreseen Voices” would go up by thousands of votes in the middle of the night. And then, whenever someone would post a critical comment, a dozen, clearly fake comments (consisting of mostly random words) would appear so that the negative comment would be pushed off the page. Here are some of the more interesting comments that they tried to bury:
lyricopera2 says:
This is a lousy video in every way. Obvious duplicate accounts, and just a sad overall video. Nothing about this video is original, funny, slick, creative, or good in almost anyway. It is sad that this video is going to represent the entire contest. How about a contest based on creativity and execution rather than I’ll make 5 million accounts and carpal tunnel myself voting for it in my mom’s basement.
dpmotu3 says:
How come every time somone leaves a negative comment anther person obviuosly supporting the video comes on and leaves a stupid one line comment just enough times to get it off the front page??
mmsedm says:
People have viewed this video almost 15,000 times?!?
It has more votes in this short time span than it did in the longer Round 1 voting. What a joke this contest is! (If you can call it a contest.)
libnotice1 says:
why are people leaving bad comments? Maybe it is because no one understand how this video can get votes like crazy in the middle of the night. Maybe it is also because no one likes entering a contest you can’t win because no one can keep up with a video that is somehow getting 6000 votes a day.
Kirk LaSalle says:
This video had over 8000 votes in the fist 24 hours.. LOL when the votes get audited…(and they DO get audited)
LOL he’ll be in for surprise! LOL
“Kirk Lasalle” was wrong. There was no audit because the rules technically allowed all the activities that everyone was complaining about. And these guys weren’t the only repeat voters by the way. The vote counts of many of the top 10 finalist videos are ludicrously high and there were plenty of accusations thrown at other filmmakers. So the whole thing was one big ClusterF#$&.
If you look at the contest website it’s immediately clear that Home Run Inn realizes they screwed up. They actually post a sort of apology NEXT TO the picture of the contest winner. It really comes off as a sort of diss against the guy. It’s like saying “ok, we screwed up and here’s the guy that wrecked the contest for everyone else by staying up all night voting for his own video over and over.” Here’s the text of the announcement:
Thank you to everyone who participated and voted in this year’s Video Challenge. We appreciate everyone’s comments regarding how the contest should be judged in the future years. This is only our second year, so we take all comments/concerns into consideration. We are already talking about ways to make this contest better for next year and would like you to know that your feedback has definitely helped us! Something we are considering is adding in judge’s picks to the finalist round so that all videos, even those entered late in the contest, have a fair chance.
This was a really fun idea for a video contest and if judges had been in charge of picking the winner I would have entered in a second. So hopefully a new, improved version of the contest will be back next year.
It always warms my cockles to see a really great video win a big prize in a contest. Last week, Baskin Robbins announced the winners of their “Ice Cream and Cake” Dance video contest and my cockles couldn’t be any happier. The idea of the contest was that you were supposed to shoot a video of yourself dancing to the new (and apparently “Peanut butter Jelly Time” inspired) Ice Cream and Cake song.
There was a lot of cash at stake in this one: first place was $10K, second was $5K and third was $1K. Oh, and all the winners got some ice cream cakes too! First place got a thousand dollars worth. Damn….that’s a lot of frickin’ ice cream cake. But as you’ll see, I’m sure they can put it to good use. First place went to a video that was shot by like an entire dance academy of kids. Not only is it over the top and well-choreographed, the production quality is top notch. Whoever shot that was really smart. Instead of just setting the camera to shoot a wide shot of all the action they added tons of charisma and fun to the video by actually getting close-ups of the dancing kid’s faces.
You can see all three winning videos here:
The video that took third is one of the WEIRDEST video contest entries I have ever seen. It looks like it could be a comedy sketch shot for the Andy Milonakis show. Do yourself a favor and check it out. It’ll make you wonder how the heck those two people know each other. My question is, who knew it would be hilarious to film them having a baskin and robbins adventure together?
There are only 18 days left to enter the Doritos Crash the Superbowlcommercial contest. But if you’re visiting this site, you probably already know that. And if you know exactly when the Crash the Superbowl deadline is then I bet you certainly know who Joe and Dave Herbert are. They are the dudes that you aspire to be!
Last year, the Herbert Brother’s commercial “Free Doritos” not only won the Crash the Superbowl competition, it went on to be ranked the #1 best spot of the entire game by the USA Today Ad Meter. That amazing feat earned them a million dollar bonus from Doritos…and lots of jealousy from ad execs on Madison avenue.
With a single win, Joe and Dave Herbert became the biggest video contest winners of all time. If this site had a hall of fame, they’d be the first inductees. Since their big win the brothers from Indiana have made the most out of the exposure they’ve gotten and have gone on to become for real, professional filmmakers. Now that’s a prize you can’t put a price tag on.
I had the opportunity to do an e-mail interview with the Herbert Brothers about their experiences and about the new installment of the Crash the Superbowl contest. They were insanely generous with their time and came back at me with some really awesome answers. If you’re planning on entering the Crash the Superbowl, or really, ANY video contest, READ THIS INTERVIEW! It’s filled with tips, strategies and nuggets of wisdom about HOW TO WIN.
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Guys, first off, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. I hadn’t seen the Crash the superbowl finalists before the game last year but I was thrilled when I saw your commercial. Right away I knew that it had to be the winner of the Doritos contest and I also immediately knew that it was hands down the best commercial of the game. The impact of your million dollar win has just been enormous. This time last year, filmmakers had to scour the web looking for video contests to enter. Today, video contests are such a hot marketing tool that there are too many to even keep track of. And I know that if your spot hadn’t ranked number 1 on the ad meter, contests would be nowhere near as popular as they are now. So everybody enters and wins video contests really owe you. Ok, now for the questions:
VCN: You guys seem to have gone through a lot of trouble to shoot your commercial. How difficult was it to get everything you needed for the spot?
DAVE: Great question and the answer is that it was both difficult and easy-as-pie all at the same time. My biggest concern when we finally committed to the idea was getting our hands on a vending machine that we could destroy…and do it on our pea sly budget. The only place we looked was EBAY. We bought a nicer looking piece of junk for $400 and were in business. The next thing we needed to obtain were pieces of glass that we could put into the machine that would explode on impact. We looked into glass that would break with the kind of explosiveness that we wanted. We ended up getting five panes of tempered glass made to the right dimensions for around-about total of $130. The last big prop that we needed to figure out was the sno-globe. We needed a nice looking globe for close-ups, but one that was heavy enough to toss through the vending machine glass and light enough to hit a person in the jewels. What we did do was purchase a nice sno-globe for the close-ups. We used a duct-taped bocce ball to zing through the vending machine glass (which we did NO effects to in the spot – freeze frame the throw mid-air and you’ll see a perfectly round, duct-taped bocce ball). We wanted to do the entire last shot without cutting to make it look (and feel) more real so we used CGI and animation. The cast and crew were simple to get. Most of them we’ve worked with before, and the ones we haven’t worked with were excited to jump on board.
JOE: Before everything Dave talked about it was simply coming up with the right concept. When we do something, we put every effort into making whatever it is we do the best we can make it — and usually that involves a lot of research. Once we understood how the USA Today Ad Meter worked we began to generate ideas that we thought would give a wide audience (men, women, races, ages, etc.) reason to turn up their dials. We also did a study of previous winners – from what quarter they aired, to how long the commercial was, to what the subject matter was, etc. and looking at the top five ad meter finishes over the past 8 years gave us some good insight as to what works and what doesn’t. On the one hand I can say I’m not surprised we took the top spot because that’s actually what we set out to do — on the other hand we realize what an amazing feat it was to actually do what we set out to accomplish — which was seemingly impossible (even in our own minds).
Joe and Dave’s Million Dollar commercial:
VCN: Was there a point when you considered making something less complicated?
DAVE: No, but we did make two spots for the contest. Our other spot, NERDS, of course did not make the finals but you can view it from our website, http://www.herbertbrothers.com. When they announced the contest we both knew that FREE DORITOS was the idea to use. BUT, this was the first year that Doritos was offering the $1M bonus, so we did the homework and looked into what we needed to do to rank high on the USA Today Ad Meter and tailored the idea to work for Doritos AND score as high a ranking as possible.
JOE: I don’t believe we’ve done anything since birth to make things less complicated — not on ourselves, not on our parents, not on our wives, not on anyone. I hope one day to accomplish the complicated task of making a task less complicated. =)
The Herbert Brothers OTHER entry for the 2009 Crash the Superbowl competition:
VCN: Was this your first video contest experience?
DAVE: Our first video contest experience was in the original 2007 Doritos Crash the Super Bowl Contest. Niether Joe nor I are formally trained filmmakers. We weren’t professionals, we’ve never taken a film class. We had only just begun to learn about filmmaking by teaching ourselves and had just finished our first short film EVER just before that contest launched. We were looking for a new project to do and a friend had heard about it and we dicided to give it a try.
JOE: In 2008 we were super excited to enter our second competition – that being another shot at the super bowl with the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl ad contest. Sadly they changed it up on us making a contest for original music. Had we attempted making music, no amount of research in the world would have saved us from coming in dead last! 2009 Doritos had the contest again and this time it was for commercials again! And this time a million was up for grabs. And this time… well, you know the rest.
Joe and Dave’s 2007 Crash the Superbowl Finalist video: Doritos Duct Tape
VCN: If not, what other kind of competitions have you entered?
DAVE: Joe and I are not really contest kind of guys. We were definitely pursuing filmmaking as dream careers, but did not go hunting for every contest we could get into. Of course, as mentioned above, we entered the 2007 Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest which was our first ever contest and we did quite well. We were gung-ho about entering the 2008 Crash, but Doritos ran it for musicians…and Joe and I are NOT musicians. When we found out that we couldn’t create a spot for the 2008 Crash we started looking for aother contest to enter and got into the Heinz 57 Top This TV Challenge. Nothing against Heinz or ketchup in general, but we never really got into that contest with as much enthusiasm as the Crash…but we wanted to shoot something. Those are the only video/commercial contests we’ve ever entered before winning the 2009 Crash.
JOE: Most of the competitions we enter are unwritten ones – that is to say the competitions we have amongst each other. Dave and I are the oldest of five boys. All of us are VERY COMPETITIVE in sports, jobs, dreams, you name it. In fact a few years ago, simply as a joke, we decided on a competition to determine who will be the most famous Herbert Brother – and that to determining factor was to be the first to appear on a late night talk show. So we can thank Doritos and Jay Leno for making Dave and I the winners of that contest!
VCN: How did you guys find out that your video was going to play during the Superbowl?
DAVE: The folks at Doritos like to give people ulcers so they don’t reveal the winner before hand. We found out the exact same time that everyone else in the world found out…once it aired! Doritos lines up all of the finalists in front of the TV to record the winners’ reactions as the winning spot airs. And since we were finalists in the first Crash in 2007 we’ve been in those seats before and lost. Joe and I both were disgusted by the thought of getting so close and losing again. I could barely take it! I had such a sick feeling going into it all of the way up until the excitement of actually winning. The whole experience is emotional torture but, win or lose, is such a wild ride that you want to get on again and again…it’s addictive. And I have to say that, although the folks at Doritos love to watch the finalists squirm and give them ulcers, they sure make it a lot of fun. It is hands down the BEST video/commercial contest on the planet!
JOE: It’s funny when you watch the reaction video. Everyone comments on the reaction AFTER we see our commercial air, but few notice the expressions leading up to it. Because Dave and I have been there and lost before it wasn’t enough just to be there this time… and when you see the five finalists the other four are on the edge of their seats, eyes wide open in anticipation, with huge grins on their faces — meanwhile, I’m leaned back in my chair with my arms crossed just sitting there will no real expression whatsoever. It’s funny to look back on that.
DAVE: Yes, of course! Part of being a finalist is getting an all expenses paid WEEK LONG party that ends with going TO the game and watching it live from a luxury box!!!
JOE: And then when we returned our entire town of Batesville threw us a parade with the help of Doritos. The mayor gave us the key to the city, and the Governor gave us distinguished hoosier awards. It was a great party!
Dave and Joe and the Snowglobe and a whole lot of chips
VCN: How have your lives changed since the win?
DAVE: Joe and I began pursuing dreams of filmmaking for about 5 years before we won, but winning has become our “big break” into the industry. After winning we were able to sign with a commercial repping firm that represents us nationally for commercial work. We’ve also partnered with an Indianapolis production company to produce commercials with us and have had small businesses and multi-million dollar companies contact us directly about doing spots for them which we’ve been doing – both writing and directing. We can finally say that we are professional filmmakers! On top of all of that we’ve signed with a manager in Los Angeles that represents us for writing/directing feature films and have had introductory meetings with numerous studios including Fox, Dreamworks, MGM, Universal, Lakeshore, Funny or Die, Comedy Central, and many others! We have two screenplays that we’re currently developing. Needless to say we’ve been having a lot of fun with our new jobs which on top of filmmaking includes launching a board game that we’ve been developing for almost 10 years. We went into debt before the contest began to finally manufacture our game, TRIVIATHON, and winning the bonus prize of $1M has definitely relieved that financial stress – especially since neither Joe nor I had a “real” job at the time. You can check out TRIVIATHON, which itself has won some major awards in the industry including 2009 Creative Child Magazine GAME OF THE YEAR, etc., at http://www.triviathon.com.
JOE: While I can say without a doubt that YES it did change our lives I can also say without a doubt that it did NOT change us. We’ve had the pleasure of doing a lot of traveling as guest speakers at events all over the country and it amazes me how many people stop us afterward to point out how down to earth and genuine we are. We don’t do it on purpose, we just be ourselves, but I guess that’s the point, lol.
VCN: Aside from the money, what was the coolest thing to happen as a result of you winning the Crash the Superbowl challenge?
DAVE: Most people would probably be surprised to hear that the money WAS NOT even the coolest thing that has happened. I’m not motivated at all by money and it is not why we entered the contest. In fact, I haven’t really bought anything with the money and Joe hasn’t either. We gave around $90,000 to our team that volunteered and worked with us creating the spot, we’ve given a decent chunk to charity and are investing some of the winnings into an entrepreneurialy philanthropic adventure that we’ve had buzzing in our heads for the last few years… but aside from that have invested it into our board game and filmmaking careers. The experience itself is the real prize!!! You cannot buy it with all of the money in the world!!! The exposure that we’ve received and the lives that we’ve touched through the inspirational story that we’ve lived is as sweet as it gets! To chose one specific thing throughout the experience for me personally would be appearing as guests on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The rest of the exposure that we got was news, but Jay Leno is entertainment!!! News HAS to cover news worthy stories, but Jay Leno doesn’t have to have us on unless he wants to. Besides, three years prior, my four brothers and I agreed on a contest that would determine the “Most Famous Herbert Brother”…and that would be the first to appear as guest on a late night talk show! Joe and I won, but it was almost too easy only taking three years to accomplish. So we agreed to start the contest again and this time pick something a little harder. The winner of “Most Famous Herbert Brother” will now be determined by the first of us five to appear on the cover of a national magazine (bonus for being Time Magazine Man of the Year) -OR- have a road in a major city named after us. We like to have FUN!!!!
JOE: I agree with dave. I think the parade our town threw for us one of the coolest things. As part of the contest Doritos was supposed to pay us a million for taking the top spot. But nobody HAD to throw us a parade. That was special. Jay Leno was great too! I think both of us feel it’s not one moment in time to cherish now because it will be gone soon…. for us it was a beginning and not and end, so we’re just getting started. The coolest stuff to happen as a result of it haven’t happened yet…but it will. That’s making a movie… and seeing our board game become a huge hit.
The brothers sit down with former Doritos pitchman, Jay Leno
VCN: What are your plans for the future?
DAVE: It’s great to plan for the future but I don’t like to get too far ahead of myself. Joe and I began the filmmaking quest a bit over 5 years ago and our goal then was to shoot a feature film, something that we have not done yet. Winning the Crash is definitly not the END of our story. We continue to develop our feature scripts, write and direct commercials, and push our board game, TRIVIATHON, into the market. Both Joe and I, and our other three brothers for that matter, are entrepreneurially minded and are always thinking of new adventures to start. But no matter what direction we get spun into we go at it with all we got and, as Doritos says, “GO BIG, OR GO HOME TRYING!”
JOE: I keep finding myself answering a question only to read the next question and see Dave answer something similar to what I said in the previous question. actually… GO HOME TRYING is not even an option for us because we’ll simply never stop trying. We don’t give up on anything. That’s why any disputes we had as kids are still disputed today.. and will be forever. lol. Making a movie and turning our board game into a success are definitely our plans. Both of us have great wives and a bunch of crazy kids, and our other plans for the future lies with them.
The brothers visit Madison Avenue to announce this year’s Crash
VCN: You’ve probably been asked this more that a few times but if you had to give one piece of advice to someone planning to enter this year’s Crash the Superbowl contest, what would it be?
DAVE: My advice is to THINK! Actually put more thought into it than, “Hey, here is an idea…let’s make it!” The concept is KEY!!! It has to be funny…and not just funny between you and your friends. It has to be funny to everyone. Think about who the audience is and make it funny for them, without forgetting about who the commerical is for – Doritos. Doritos will pick the six finalists so THEY have to like the commercial first for you to have a shot. Read the rules to find out what specifically they are looking for. There have been TEN finalists so far in past Doritos Crash contests… go onto YouTube and get a visual idea to see what Doritos has chosen in the past and view the type of quality your spot has to be. Be creative and ORIGINAL!!! And don’t be afraid to bring in professionals if you can. Filmmaking is a TEAM sport!!! Build the best team that you can. If no one on your team has experience in filmmaking you’re going to be at a severe disadvantage!!! Do whatever you can to give yourself the advantage!! Contact your local film commision (every large city has one – google search to find the site/contact info for yours) and get in touch with REAL filmmakers to build into your team. If you have a GREAT idea then some of them should be willing to work for FREE and even bring their own equipment (professional labor, camera, lights, sound, etc. for FREE!!!!!) If you can’t find people willing to work then your IDEA may not be as good as you think!!! Get professional crew if you can…equipment if you can… actors if you can. Don’t just be satisfied with rounding up some friends if you want to take a REAL shot at WINNING!!!! You are not competing against other amateurs…in the end you are competing against the absolute BEST in the business, and if you don’t go into it knowing that then you will lose! But, with the right idea, if it is created at a professional level you can be the next million dollar media darling!!!!!! It’s worth the shot, and we’ve proved it possible. All that’s left is simply doing it!!!
JOE: Just because we did it, doesn’t mean someone can’t do it in a totally different way, and everyone should rely on their own gut feelings… that said my advice, for what it’s worth, is exactly what Dave said. And here’s my top 10 of things to rethink when entering the contest:
10. Doritos made nasty in some way then eaten anyhow does NOT make anyone want to buy and/or eat Doritos!
9. If you finished the commercial the same day you thought of it, OUCH!
8. If the BEST thing about your commercial is something from the toolbox, GOOD LUCK!
7. Doritos being used as a paper football is NOT a new idea!
6. Just because Halloween is coming up does NOT mean it’s smart to use your costume! (thieves, ninjas, monsters, etc.)
5. Just because it’s the Super Bowl doesn’t mean it has to be a commercial involving football! (of the 10 finalists in previous years none were)
4. Your pets and your kids are not half as cute or funny as YOU think they are!
3. Doritos orange dust finger prints has been done only a few hundred times!
2. Doritos causing a loser to get a hot girl has only been done a few thousand times!
1. Doritos bags treated like a person (especially dating a bag) has only been done a few million times!
MY OPINION ONLY – and I’m sure now that I said it that this years winners will have all the above, lol!
VCN: Thanks for the great interview guys. I’m going to get back to working on my entry right now!
Oh my God! It’s been months since Careerbuilder announced that a winner had been selected in their “Hire My TV ad” commercial contest. But they never actually announced WHO that winner was. I had assumed that they wanted the winning video to be a surprise when it aired during the superbowl. (the point of the contest was to create an “idea” for a commercial. The winning video would be re-shot and maybe aired during the 2010 superbowl.) So I was shocked when I checked the contest site today and saw that the winners had been posted. I was even more shocked that there were 3 (three!?) winners and not one.
The grand prize in this contest was $100,000. Or at least it was supposed to be. I have to guess that Careerbuilder split that prize money among the three winning videos. The winners in this contest were selected by Careerbuilder and voting had no effect on the outcome. Also, keep in mind that production quality didn’t really matter toooo much since the commercial that airs during the superbowl would be re-shot.
Winner #1
Winner #2
Winner #2
So yeah…those are good. I could see the first and third one on TV. It’s weird but both of them feature a boss giving a “bad” employee a high-five for their weird behavior. How the second video won I have no idea. It’s kind of funny but it promotes the negative “angry black lady” stereotype and would probably make some people unhappy if it actually aired.
So which video will be re-shot? Here’s what the contest site says about that:
“Thanks to all of you who submitted videos for our hiremytvad contest. There were so many great videos that it was difficult to just pick one. We have chosen three as our grand prize winners!! Take a look at our grand prize winners and the winner of the Fan Favorite contest below and watch the Big Game airing on or about February 7th, 2010 to see if one of the co-grand prize winners is selected for our commercial.”
Catch that big “IF” in there? I have a feeling that none of these commercials will be re-shot for the superbowl. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one on them (Burrito town) aired on TV, as is.
Ok, this is a really, really, really obscure contest but the winning video amused me so I thought I’d post it. The contest was called “Bhangra Rocks!” What is Bhangra? The contest announcement on the Bhangra Rocks website explains it a bit:
“Bhangra – It is India’s quintessential dance form, that brings a smile on every face with the sheer melody of its beats and those footloose dance steps. Internationally recognized as the ultimate dance form of fun and enjoyment, we invite all you dance enthusiasts to shake a leg – bhangra style! Go as unique and creative as you can get. Go Bhangra on your favorite Punjabi track or on the latest number of your star hip-hopper. Bring on the beats, let your hair down and have someone record it while you enjoy to the desi (or not so desi) music.”
Though I was tempted to go bhangra on my favorite Punjabi track, I did not get around to submitting an entry for this one. Good thing too because these dudes would have blown me out of the water!
I seriously was eating some of these like an hour ago
I can’t believe there are only 24 days to go before the deadline to enter the Doritos Crash the Superbowl contest. Time is flying by. So far, only about 100 people have submitted entries. Last year, Doritos received more that 1,900 entries! So to keep up with that number, 75 people a day will have to start uploading commercials. However it’s probably more likely that a thousand videos will be uploaded during the last week of the contest. There does seem to be a whole lot of interest in the contest at least. Even videos that just went up have hundreds of views.
But maybe there just won’t be as many entries this year? For one thing, most of the country has been a lot colder than normal this month. The area where I live has had rainy and colder than average weather for the last 20 days or so! That makes filming your big picnic scene or whatever kind of hard. But of course the big factor this year will probably be the economy. Last year the winners of the million dollar “snowglobe” commercial spent $2,000 on their spot. Know many people who are willing to spend that much money on a project that might get them nothing in the end, these days? I guess we’ll see. I have a feeling a lot of entries are going to be shot this weekend.
Doritos has made some nice improvements to the contest site in the last few days. For one, they mercifully added a “MUTE” button so that you could turn off the annoying rock music that plays in a loop. They also added a feature where you could link to or embed specific videos. So I thought I’d give it a try. Out of the 108 videos that have so far been submitted for the contest, these two are hands down, without question, the best:
The one with the shark is pretty good and was made by Jared Cicon who was a finalist in the contest in 2007 I think. That shark is by far the best prop and best sight gag used in any of the entries. The one with the guy putting his head through the roof IS one of the best of the submitted videos but I think by next week it will fall out of the running. For a video that relies on slapstick and action I think it’s lacking a really strong punchline and isn’t crazy enough for the superbowl. But still, it’s funny and pretty well done.
So, those are the two best entries. If the commercial you’re planning to shoot isn’t at least as good as these then you might want to go back to the drawing board while you still have time left.
UPDATE: Jared, the creator of the Shark commercial wrote a great blog post about the making of his spot and included some nice strategic tips. He even came to VCN and left an informative comment to this post. So to read more about “The Video Contest King” check out his website and click the “View Comments” button below to learn more about his Crash the Superbowl plans.
Wowza. If you want to see some really, really good video contest entries, check out the videos that won the Etsy “Handmade Moment” contest. Submitted videos had to be under 30 seconds, promote Etsy (a neat site where people sell their crafts and homemade goods) and be based on the theme “A handmade moment.”
As you’d expect, all the winning entries were animated or stop motion videos featuring craft supplies doing crazy things. Also not surprisingly, the winners heavily featured adorable monsters and robots because monsters and robots are notoriously huge fans of crafting. Here’s a screen cap of the first place video (prize: $3,250) that features both a monster AND a robot. Click it to visit the contest site and see all the winning entries.
The opening of the remake of Fame came and went without much attention a few weeks back but to promote the release of the film, LG sponsored a Fame-themed video contest. They encouraged dancers, singers and musicians to film themselves covering the remade Fame theme song in whatever way they wanted. So a dancer could dance to it or a singer could sing it or a musician could play it. I’m sure you get the picture. There was only won prize and it was a whopper: $50,000. Here’s the winning video. I can’t embed it so click on the image to watch it.
Warning: Video contains mimes
Whoever shot that thing is really smart. Most of the other entries consist of a people who set their camera up in their bedroom or in their ballet studio and danced in front of it alone. The makers of the winning video went all out and made a super slick music video. I can see why it won but….I don’t know, it seems a little TOO slick if you ask me. This is one of those times when you have to wonder if maybe the sponsor hired a ringer to create a great entry. Except that doesn’t make much sense in this case. Normally I’d suspect a ringer if a company plans on using the wining video in their advertising campaigns. But the ad campaign for Fame is over. The contest itself was part of that campaign and the movie has already kind of been forgotten about. So everything is probably on the up and up. I’m going to guess that a lot of the kids who jumped around in front of their web cams and thought they’d have a chance at winning 50 grand will be upset that a pro-made video went on to be named the winner in this one. Again, the winning video was really well made but picking it sort of goes against the original “film yourself” spirit of the contest, I think.
Yesterday Kenmore announced the winners of their “Crazy Cleaning Confessions” video contest. Entrants were supposed to make a video that showed a wacky example of what they’ve done in the past to get their clothes or dishes clean. The top 3 prizes were all “high-efficiency” washers, dryers or dishwashers. Here’s the vid that snagged the Grand Prize:
Grand Prize. Prize: Washer and Dryer set
I think the most entertaining aspect of that video is that the two little boys were totally not into the whole thing. At one point the dad is trying to get them to take a bath in some clothes (so he can wash the kids and the clothes at the same time of course) and clearly the kids just want to GTFO of the tub and take off those sopping wet clothes as soon as possible. Hope the parents who made that video at least took those kids to Great America or something as thanks for winning them a free washer and dryer. Now, check out the second place (technically “first place”) winner.
First Place. Prize: Washer Set
This video is good for several reasons. For one, the “crazy confession” the lady gives is actually not a bad tip. Second, of all the talking-into-the-camera video contest entries I’ve seen, this is one of the best. She speaks very naturally and isn’t all nervous and phony. But the best thing about this video is that it shows you what Sarah Palin would be doing is she never ran for Governor of Alaska. Seriously! Watch that video and just picture Sarah Palin, Hockey Mom and former sports anchor from Wasilla making a video like that. Man….any video contest that makes you contemplate the possibilities of alternate realities is a pretty successful one I guess. Way to blow my mind, Kenmore.
I usually don’t post about new contests since there are plenty of other sites devoted to doing that. But the 2nd Annual Louisiana Hot Sauce Video Contest is a great example of what a GOOD contest looks like. What makes this a contest well worth entering?
1. First place gets you $5,000
2. There are two runner up prizes of $2500 and $500
3. There are no time limits on entries
4. There is no required info
5. Videos can be about basically whatever you want
6. View counts and votes don’t matter
7. Judges alone pick the winners
8. Just by entering you get a free t-shirt!
That’s how it should be done, son! Essentially there is only one rule in this contest; use a bottle of Original Louisiana hot sauce in your video. Having loose requirements will help insure that the sponsor gets a whole lot of interesting and crazy entries.
The deadline to enter is….January 31st!?!? That’s almost four months from now. Pfffft. If you’re anything like me you won’t be shooting an entry for this one until around January 25th.
Since this is the “Second Annual” Louisiana Hot Sauce Video contest I thought I’d look up the winning video of the First Annual Louisiana Hot Sauce Video Contest. It turned out to be a not so super-great rap video. I read that more that 70 videos were submitted to last year’s contest but this video was deemed to be the best of them all. Judges make odd choices sometimes.
Ecompliments.com held a video contest where entrants were supposed to like, compliment somebody…I think. The actual rules or even the point of the whole thing don’t really matter. What matters is that the winner of the 10 Grand was decided by a public vote.
Letting “the public” pick the winner of a video contest is bad enough. But the organizers took things a step further and allowed the public to start voting before the end of the submission deadline. That means that the first people to upload videos had a huge advantage. Here’s the video that went on to win the top spot:
First Place. Prize: $10,000
That video wound up receiving 3,195 votes but the second place video (who won nothing) had only 1585 votes. This begs the question, how did such a blowout occur?
Turns out the dude who won the 10K has a huge youtube following. He does a web show called The DeFranco Update and he has himself 104,273 subscribers to his youtube channel! He added a link to his video so that if any of his fans wanted to vote for him all they had to do was click, register and vote. So did any of those 3,195 voters watch any of the other videos before they decided that the Defraco Report guy’s entry was the best? Of course not. They just voted for the guy they already liked and then moved on.
And I don’t blame Defranco Report guy for this one bit. Yes he had an advantage over the other contestants because he already had a fan base but you can’t hold it against the guy for making the most of the opportunity when it came along. I’ve had some videos go viral before and though it’s fun to see your view count rise, you can’t help but wish there was some way to make real money off of all those clicks. So the winner of the contest just found a unique way to make money off his internet celebrity.
The organizers of the contest seem to realize that they basically messed up and held a $10,000 popularity contest. The Ecompliments contest website says…..
“We will be running a new contest with new rules in January. A panel will determine the winner based on a combination of factors. Although votes will be a primary factor it will not be the only one. The video requirements will be more tightly focused on “compliments” and “sharing the good.” There will be a grand prize and prizes for second and third place.”
Sounds like they probably got whole lot of complaints about how the winner was picked. But good for them for doing a whole new contest. Hey, maybe I can shoot an entry for the new contest where I compliment the organizers for doing a new and improved contest!
Temptation, thy name is TwirlTV. For the last few days I have been wrestling with an ethical dilemma. To force myself to do the right thing I’ll blog about my mildly-evil plan rather than carry it out.
I don’t know what Twirl TV is. Some type of Hulu thing maybe? Who cares? Point is they’re holding a video contest that seems designed to reward cheaters. The idea is that you make a 15 or 30 second promo for, or a 3 minute parody of, your favorite TV show. Then you upload the thing to youtube and forward the link to Twirl TV within 6 hours of the upload time so they can keep track of it.
Now, here’s the BS part: Whichever video has the highest VIEW COUNT by October 16th wins $1,000.
Can you believe that? What is the friggin’ point!? It is so easy to increase your view count on youtube it’s embarrassing. Obviously you can just sit at your computer hitting the play button over and over but with the help of a very basic add-on to your internet browser you can race to the top of any “highest view count wins” contest in no time at all. Because I couldn’t believe the rules of this contest I wrote the organizers. Here is the e-mail I sent them:
“I have a question about the Twirl TV video contest. I wanted to enter but I saw that the winning video will be the one with the highest view count on youtube. Getting a high view count on youtube is very, very easy. You just need to know a few super easy computer tricks and you can automatically rack up views. How are you guys going to ensure that a cheater doesn’t win the contest? I’d hate to spend my time shooting a video only to find out some guy with an auto-refresher won by a landslide.”
And here is the actual response I got from Twirl TV:
“Thank you for you interest in our contest. We understand the possible use of automatic refreshers and developed a judging prize that is equal in value. The judging panel will consist of a TV producer and two of our top two Twirl TV users. We look forward to seeing your video and i will gladly answer any additional questions.”
-contest@twirltv.com
Translation: We know and we don’t care. The people behind this contest understand that this “view count” race is going to be won by a cheater. They’re also giving away a $1,000 video camera to the video they like best so who cares about the view count contest? I do, that’s who. This is just total and complete laziness on the part of the organizers of this contest. Oh, laziness and stupidity. A “highest view count wins” contest could only be dreamed up by people who have no clue how the internet works these days. These type of people keep hearing about Twitter and yotube and Digg and facebook and they feel the need to jump on the viral video/social networking bandwagon even though they don’t know where the bandwagon is going or why.
At some point, the marketing people who came up with this contest had to explain it to the tech people who were supposed to set it up. I’m a tech guy and I’ve had to deal with marketing people before and some of them can be really thick-headed. They are “idea people” who get tunnel vision when they think they have an ingenious plan. Maybe some IT nerd tried to speak up and suggest how easy it would be for someone to get an artificially high view count. But the marketing people didn’t care. As long as it LOOKED like a lot of people had watched these promos then they could tell their bosses that the contest was a huge success. “We’re happy to report that the video contest entries had a combined view count of over 200,000!” they’ll say. “That means we exposed our brand to 200,000 people and only spent $2,000. Look how awesome at marking we are!”
After I got the e-mail back from Twirl TV I honestly thought good and hard about entering and then doing the things it would take for me to ensure a win. There are still 8 days to go in the contest and right now the most viewed video in the competition only has 1,700 views. Pffffft. I could shoot and upload a video today and have 1,700 “views” by midnight. But I’ve decided that $1,000 just isn’t worth the guilt I’d feel.
However….that guilt wouldn’t extend beyond my own head. If I were to upload a video for this contest and then auto-refresh myself to a view count victory I would technically not be cheating. BECAUSE THE RULES OF THE CONTEST DO NOT PROHIBIT SUCH ACTIVITY. There’s no way that Twirl TV could ever track which IP addresses your video’s views came from but even if they could, replaying your own video over and over is not against the rules. So if you’re in the mood to make an easy $1,000 go knock your self out.
Ok, I am confused. I am confused by Australia; both the country and the continent. Today I saw the results of the “Learn, Live and Grow; Study in Australia video contest.” The point of the contest was to explain why it’s awesome to study abroad in Australia. Here’s the winning video:
First Place. Prize: A trip to Australia
For the most part it’s a funny entry and really covers all the bases that were required by the contest. So why am I in such a kerfuffle? Because First Prize in this contest is a trip to Australia….and the dude who won SHOT THAT ENTRY WHILE IN AUSTRALIA.
From the winning student’s mini-bio that’s up on the contest site, it looks like he’s already returned home to Canada. But still, doesn’t it seem weird that the guy was apparently just in Australia a few weeks ago and now he’s already got a free trip back? Couldn’t they have maybe given the prize to someone who wasn’t already in Australia while the contest was going on?? Oh well. Some Canadians have all the luck I guess.
Wait a second…this guy didn’t win a “trip” to Australia. He won 2 round-trip plane tickets to Australia. Man, that kinda sucks. They couldn’t spring for a couple nights in a hotel? On the plus side, at least I’m not jealous of that guy anymore.
Doritos: One is too many and a million's not enough
Know what I’m doing right now? I am…honest to God, eating a bag of Doritos. I haven’t consciously bought a bag of Doritos in at least a year. And even then I’m sure I bought them to take to a party. I’m just not really a “chip” guy if you know what I mean. But here I am with orange fingers, crunching away.
So clearly Dorito’s Crash the Superbowl contest has been a tremendous success. In a survey I conducted with myself, 100% of participants indicate that since the announcement of the Dorito’s contest, their Doritos consumption has gone through the roof. (margin of error: +/- 100%)
I really want to shoot an entry for the Crash the Superbowl contest but I’ve got a bad case of filmmaker’s block. (that’s a thing, right?) So I thought I’d actually buy the kind of giant bag of Doritos you always see in commercials. The good news is that I’ve learned that eating like 30 Doritos for lunch is a pretty F#$%ing fun way to pass a Monday afternoon. The bad news is that all the ideas I’ve been coming up with are kind of weird and complicated. Right now I could shoot a really awesome short film or two about Doritos but I just have not been able to come up with a solid 30 second idea.
And the pressure to get shooting is building. There are now 35 DAYS left to submit an entry for the challenge and already 47 entries have been submitted. 47 entries! That’s more than a lot of video contests will get after 6 months. Who are these freaks that are submitting their commercials 5 weeks before the deadline!?
Click to see the first 'Crash' entries
Because I am crazy, I watched all 47 sentries over the last few days. The Verdict? There are some funny ideas but none of the videos have the necessary production quality to be shown on TV. That’s not really a huge surprise though. I’m guessing most of the people who will make the finals are in the middle of pre-production right now.
In the previous post I wrote about “Butterfinger Phone App” which just won $25,000 in the Butterfinger video contest. Well I watched probably 80% of the posted entries and there’s one video that stood out above all others. This great video didn’t even make it to the finals, which was a real surprise. Anyway, if Beardy picked the winners this is the video I would have chosen. It’s called “This Butterfinger’s Mine” and I dare you not to hit the replay button after you watch it for the first time:
Hope you like that song because it’s gonna be stuck in your head alllll day long.
Seems like every marketing guy and their momma is trying to entice us Joe Handycams into shooting ads for their company these days. There’s a lot of cash and a ton of prizes waiting to be won in online video contests and if you have even a smidge of writing, shooting or editing skills, all that awesome stuff could be yours. So you guys focus on winning ‘em and we’ll cover the aftermath of your glorious victories and/or pathetic defeats!
Video contests can get pretty ugly. Organizers do not always want to play by their own rules, other contestants flagrantly cheat and poorly run competitions cause frustrations for everyone. Wish you could bring a problem to the attention of a contest’s organizers but you’re worried that you might be branded a no-good troublemaker? We can help. Let us know about your problem and we’ll try and kick a little ass on your behalf. E-mail us at Videocontestnews@gmail.com.
