Hey, do you remember the OTHER Superbowl commercial contest that was looking for entries last year? You know, the weirdly named, “Hire My Tv Ad” contest sponsored by Careerbuilder? For that one you were supposed to film an idea for a commercial and Careerbuilder would pick one they liked, re-shoot it professionally and then air it during the Superbowl. Guess they didn’t have enough faith in we non-pros to promise to put something we shot in front of 100 million people. Of course, they only offered one, $100,000 prize compared to the Doritos contest which offered a potential, max prize of 2 million bucks. So filmmakers didn’t go “all-in” for this contest like they did for Crash the Superbowl.
“Hire my TV Ad” was a very strangely run contest. After what seemed like forever, Careerbuilder announced they had picked THREE winners. But I get the impression that only the ad that airs during the Superbowl will receive the cash. The re-shot versions of the selected entries have just appeared on line. Here are the three winning entries and their three professional remakes:
CASUAL FRIDAY: Original
CASUAL FRIDAY: Remake
JOB FAIRY: Original
JOB FAIRY: Remake
Exactly which ad is supposed to air on Superbowl Sunday is supposed to be a mystery. But the contest site explains that the third ad has been deemed “Too Hot For TV.”
WORST SEAT: Original
WORST SEAT: Remake
All I can say is, Damn you Janet Jackson! You and your wayward nipple have made the networks way to anal about what they show. A flaming fart is PG-13 at worst.
Anyway, these are all kinda “meh.” Just like the re-shot Taxlsayer commercial I wrote about on Wednesday, the original versions all have more heart that the slick re-makes. The flaming fart one is actually FUNNIER than the remake and it looks nice enough to air.
The Hire My TV ad contest has a lot of potential and I hope Careerbuilder brings it back next year. But I’d suggest they raise the prize and offer to air the winning ad as-is. This re-shoot business is kind of a buzz kill.
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Wow, what I am amazed at, is that they didn’t re-make ‘Job Fairy’ at all. From the the casting to the story it is totally different than the original. Kind of disappointing that better storytellers got passed up for a finalist whose content wasn’t going to be reproduced anyway. Am I alone here?!? This seems to be a bit glaring.
Excuse my language, but fuck those are good. I didn’t watch any of the originals, only the remakes, and each one made me laugh at least a little, and 2 a lot. I think this is such a smarter way to go with the UGC superbowl ad concept. I’m totally impressed with careerbuilder (even though they ran a contest that I came in second on 2 years ago on memelabs and never announced a winner and never gave out the prizes, DAMN YOU CAREERBUILDER!)
But between the work they’ve done with monkeys, and these, and last years commercial which built and built and was brilliant, I have decided that if I ever look for a real job, I’ll use careerbuilder.