Last fall, I found a contest sponsored by Fed-Ex called the “Why I need a bailout” video contest. Apparently, Fed-ex’s rival, UPS was lobbying for a bailout and the contest was designed to mock them. Fed-ex even built a whole website dedicated to making fun of “The Brown Bailout.“  The concept for the site and the video contest was harsh and kinda mean-spirited…so I knew I had to enter. The idea was that you were supposed to explain why you needed a bailout and Fed-Ex would give 5 people a thousand bucks each. Plus, every finalist would get 100 bucks!

Normally I don’t enter contests with such a low top prizes but since there were 5 prizes up for grabs and I figured it’d be worth a few hours of my time. So I wrote, shot and submitted what turned out to be a really good entry. But I had been a little too eager to enter this one. I read the rules after I submitted and realized I probably had just wasted my time….

The 5 winners were to be determined by a public vote.

Crap. Fed-ex was supposed to pick 10 to 30 finalists and the public would vote for their favorites. Turns out they only got like 30 entries and so everyone got to be a finalist. All humility aside, my entry was easily the best. Hands down, all the way, the best. I sent out links to friends and tried to get some votes. But immediately I noticed that the scores of certain videos were surging upwards. To vote, you had to enter your name and some other info, fill in a CAPTCHA and the hit the “VOTE” button. But I, and about 10 of the other finalists quickly realized that if you cleared your web browser’s history and then refreshed the page, you could vote again and again and again. And here’s the most outrageous part…the contest’s rules in no way forbid voting for yourself as many times as you wanted! In fact, the rules actually said You can vote for your favorite video as many times as you want!! A free-for-all was inevitable.

yuck.

After a few days of trying to get votes, I gave up. All I could do was watch in amazement as some of the other contestants added hundreds of votes to their scores a day. In the end, the top 5 winners had thousands of votes. (and some of the losing videos had fewer than 50!) Going at a steady pace, re-peat voters were probably able to post 5 votes a minute which means they spent dozens of hours voting for themselves over and over and over. It was interesting to see some of them give up one at a time. Certain videos would get hundreds of new votes a day and then suddenly, their vote counts stopped going up. The 10-way race went down to a 9-way, then a 8-way, then a 7-way race. The people I felt sorry for were the ones that voted for themselves more than a thousand times but could never catch up to the people who eventually made the top 5.

It was obvious to anyone who looked at the contest site that the winners had cheated (well, technically they hadn’t “cheated” since re-voting wasn’t against the rules but it certainly looked like cheating) I tried to contact Fed-ex and got no response. I got an e-mail announcing the winners and that was it. But the winners were so embarrassing (seriously, some of them were like cell phone quality videos shot in dark rooms) and the cheating was so flagrant that Fed-Ex pretended like the whole thing never happened. They removed all the videos, hid the contest page and didn’t even mention the results on the “Brown Bailout” blog (they had been hyping the contest there for weeks.)  All links to the contest page had been removed from the site but I had bookmarked it.  They did list the winners but…and this blows my mind, there is no way to actually watch the winning videos.  What kind of video contest doesn’t even give links to the winning videos??  A really crappy one, that’s what kind.

On the bright side, at least they did send me my 100 bucks for making the finals.

A few weeks back I saw a listing for BlueBerry Muffin Tops’s “Blast of Blueberry” video contest and thought about entering for about half a minute. But then I saw in the rules that the sponsor would pick some finalists and then the “public” would vote for the winner…and that winner would only get a $1,500 prize. The logistics of that contest flashed me back to that sad, Fed-Ex “Brown Bailout” contest. That one sucked so much that I was too embarrassed to even write about it here when it went down. With those dark memories fresh in my head, I back-paged away as quickly as I could from the Blueberry Muffin Top site and thought to myself “I sure feel bad for the suckers who are going to enter that contest.”

Turns out, one of the suckers who entered that contest is a fan of VCN! A reader named Matt wrote me and explained he had made it to the “BBMT” finals. His entry is definitely one of the best and I voted for it. You can too by clicking here:

http://blueberrymuffintops.malt-o-meal.com/videos/

You have to register to vote of course. Matt’s entry is the one that has the thumbnail of a test subject talking to a scientist.  Here’s a direct link:  Matt’s Video.

Matt’s certainly going to have a tough time winning this one. If you’ve ever entered a vote-based video contest you know that money makes people go fucking apeshit crazy. Sure, $1,500 is a lot but some contestants will spend dozens and dozens of hours registering and voting, registering and voting, registering and voting just so they can win a little cash.

I’ve entered a few vote-based video contests over the years but Fed-Ex’s Brown Bailout contest was the last straw for me. After that one ended, I decided never again to enter a contest where the winners were picked solely by “public vote.” Really, it just isn’t worth the effort to pester my family and friends to vote for my video if some jerks are just going to sit at their computer all day and vote for themselves over and over. So heed my warnings; if a contest is letting the public pick it’s winner, DO NOT ENTER.

Purchased by Turbo Tax. Price: $4,000

Several other videos won editor’s awards of $1,000 and $500. You can see those (one of them has a bikini girl in it!) here:

http://www.poptent.net/blog/2010/02/26/announcement-turbotax-purchase/

Top-Flight purchased 5 ads submitted by poptent users for $3,500 each. You can see all five here:

http://www.poptent.net/blog/2010/02/15/top-flite-purchases-5-poptent-made-commercials/

But here’s my favorite:

Purchased by Top-Flight. Price: $3,500



Incidentally, Poptent has four big assignments open right now; Becks Beer, Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, 42 Below Vodka and Fed-Ex. The deadline for the Fed-Ex assignment is only 9 days away and only 23 videos have submitted. So this might be your chance to swoop in and get a big pay day. But…and this is going to sound crazy…I heard that the assignment pages for Becks Beer and 42 Below vodka are haunted!! I heard that when you click the “Accept Assignment button” a ghost flies out of your computer and tries to eat your face! That’s some scary stuff right there man. And I’m not just saying all this because I’m shooting submissions for Becks and 42 Below this weekend and I want to discourage you from submitting. I’m telling you because I know you love your face and are scared of ghosts.

For the third year in a row, Taxslayer.com is running their annual commercial contest.  I think I’ve got a decent idea for an entry and was looking forward to entering.  But this year, the rules of the taxslayer contest are so strange and complex that I think I might have to have to skip it.  It’s just giving me a weird vibe.  They’re asking contestants to provide a lot more stuff this year even though they are offering a grand prize that is $10,000 LESS than in previous years.  In 2008 and 2009, participants were supposed to submit one, 30 to 60 second commercial and one winner was awarded $25,000.  This year, the grand prize has been reduced to $15,000 and participants must submit TWO versions of their commercial; one that’s 15 seconds long and one that’s 30 seconds long.

For the first time though, Taxslayer is also giving away $5,000 for second place.  But last year, after the contest ended and the winner was picked, Taxslayer turned two other contestant’s entries into commercials.  So those people probably got $5,000 a piece at least.  Plus, Taxslayer paid to have all three of last year’s selected videos re-shot by professionals.  So while they are giving out more official prizes, they will be spending probably at least 20 grand less on this year’s video contest.

If you entered last year, you already know that the a lot of contestants were not happy about the winner that Taxslayer’s judges picked.  Here it is:

2009 Taxslayer Winner.  Prize: $25,000

No offense to the maker of the video and friend of VCN “HappyJoel” Moss but that video had zero production values.  It was a funny idea and he gave a good performance but everyone who entered the contest assumed that the whole point was to make a real  Taxslayer commercial that would air on TV.  After all, they aired the 2008 winner on TV exactly as it was submitted.  (click here to see that one.)  The 2008 winner featured a guy in a real knight’s costume riding around on a real horse but the 2009 video featured a guy in a plastic knight’s costume and a print out of the taxslayer logo on his toy shield.

Taxslayer received tons of really great, professionally made entries.  Any number of them were good enough to put right on TV.  My own entry didn’t turn out so well so I didn’t expect to win at all.   But when they announced that the Press Conference video has won, I was still shocked.  Taxslayer explained that they loved HappyJoel’s press conference idea so much that they decided to pick him as the winner and planned to pay a production company to shoot a professional version of the ad.  (See the remake that’s now airing on tv, here)  But that explanation just caused a lot more frustration.  If taxslayer wanted to re-shoot the winning ad, why didn’t they just say so right from the start?  I personally spent A LOT of time and a little bit of money shooting my taxslayer entry last year and I did it because I thought that I was supposed to shoot something that was “tv-ready.”  That’s what a lot of people thought.

So this year, I was looking forward to the contest because I thought they would be just looking for IDEAS for good commercials they could re-shoot. When I heard that the prize had been reduced by 10 Grand, I assumed that they were for sure just going to be looking for ideas.  But then I read the 2010 rules and now I have NO IDEA what those people want from us!

Here’s Taxslayer’s video that outlines the official rules of the contest:

The video says that in addition to winning $15,000 this year’s winners “may be broadcast on national television as part of the 2011 taxslayer.com commercial campaign.”

OK, SO WHAT THE HECK DOES THAT MEAN??  Do they want slick, ready-for-TV commercials or do they just care about cool ideas since they plan to re-shoot them anyway?  Since the prize is so much smaller and since they re-shot 3 entries last year we should obviously save our money and make simple “Sample” ads, right?  But if that’s the case, why do they want one 15 second version and one 30 second version?  And why in the name of God do we have to submit copies of our entries on BETA TAPE?  They would only need a BetaSP copy of an ad if they were going to show it on TV.

It seems like Taxslayer is trying to hedge their bets.  If a contestant submits an ad that’s slick enough to air on TV, Taxslayer will save a ton of money if they pick it since they won’t have to re-shoot it.  But just in case they don’t like any of the high-production-value entries they get, they want to still have the option to re-shoot the winning ads.

And here’s another weird thing about this contest; First place gets you $15,000 and second gets you $5,000.  But Taxslayer will use both of those ads in their 2010 commercial campaign.  So the second place winner is getting a seriously raw deal!  Since both 1^st and 2^nd place videos will probably appear on TV, Taxslayer should purchase them both for the same price.

But there is no guarantee that Taxslayer will actually show any of this year’s entries (or remakes based on entries) on TV.  Nothing (that I saw) in the official rules say anything about the winning ads appearing on TV.  That is because Taxslayer doesn’t want to be contractually obligated to air any commercials.  They say the winning videos MIGHT air on TV and they only say that in the rules video.  They probably will air at least one winner but it’d be nice if they were willing to commit to that in writing.

Oh!  I almost forget the icing on the cake.  The ultimate winners of the contest will be picked by taxslayer’s judges.  But they will pick the winners from a pool of 20 finalists.  Those finalists will be determined by view counts and star ratings on youtube!  So if you even want to be considered, you better already have a decent number of subscribers and nice, deep social network.  Hey wait a second…I run a blog that gets thousands of hits a month!  Maybe I should enter.  If I appealed to VCN readers for support I should at least be able to get enough views and votes to land in the top 20.  Hmmmmm….

Like I said, I’ve been looking forward to entering this year’s Taxslayer contest.  But there are so many other HUGE contests running right now I’m not sure I should spend my time and resources on one that is so vague about what they want.  I wanted to write taxslayer and ask them to clarify some of their rules but I couldn’t find any contact info on the contest site; just an e-mail address for submissions and the rules say “this email address is for submissions only, we will not respond to questions or other communications.”  So I thought maybe I’d just ask my questions into the ether of the internet and see if anyone else had any theories about what exactly taxslayer is looking for.

Unless Taxslayer comes out and clarifies their rules, I think I’m going to pass on this one.  Or maybe I’ll got for it…I don’t know. Anybody out there plan on entering?

Unless your Internet has been down for the last week or two, you’ve probably heard about Godaddy.com’s huge, new commercial contest.  It’s one of the absolute, best video contests I have ever seen.  First off, the prizes are huge.  Third place wins you $25,000, second place is $50,000 and first place is $100,000.  Second, many big-money contests host all the entries themselves.  But for this one, participants just submit their entries via youtube.  So unlike last year’s Doritos and Butterfinger contests, no entries will disappear in the depths of the sponsor’s servers and contestants won’t have to wait for days for their videos to appear online.  The only catch is that you have to sign up for a goddady account, which is free.

I think the thing I like best about this contest though is that the top three winners will be picked by Godaddy judges and not by a public vote.  That means the quality videos actually have a chance of coming out on top.  But the folks behind this contest did something else very smart.  Visitors to the site will be able to vote for their favorite entries but those votes have no impact on which videos win the top prizes.  Instead, there are smaller (but still pretty good) prizes for entries that are the “audience favorites.”

The deadline to enter is April 23^rd so you still have a good, long while to get your submissions in.  To kick things off, the Godaddy team created a sample entry.

Godaddy sample entry:

Here’s what the godaddy team had to say about their sample entry:

“If we expect you to make a commercial for the GoDaddy.com Commercial Contest, we should be able to make one ourselves, right? This is an idea we (Go Daddy’s Social Media Team) put together to give you an example of a potential submission for the contest. Of course, we’re not eligible to win. Also, our example’s a bit longer than the 30 second limit…”

I think it’s funny though that the sample video is 16 seconds longer than the official time limit.  Just goes to show how hard it is to keep an idea under 30 seconds.  Having their “social media team” create a sample entry is just the kind of thing that gives me a good feeling about a  video contest.  It shows that the sponsor is holding the contest partly for the fun of it.  I’ll tell you, not only will I be entering this contest, I plan to throw everything I got at this one.

Important Note! If you live in New York, Florida or outside of the US, don’t bother entering because you ain’t eligible for some reason.  Check the official rules for more details about who can enter.

The results for Application Service’s “Database security Video Smackdown!” were announced back in December but I just saw the winning video today and it’s super weird so I thought I’d post it.  Contestants were supposed to shoot videos about what else, Database security.  The grand prize was only $1,500 but the winners also got a trophy which is kinda weird.  The winning video is unique because it’s about the contest itself and the trophy actually makes an appearance.  Though…it sort of looks like a baseball trophy.  Anyway, here’s the winner. It sorta reminds me of that comedy central show, Stella.  Oh, don’t watch this if you have an aversion to seeing blurred out man-asses.

First place.  Prize: $1,500 and a trophy

If I could, I’d give those guys a trophy for “funniest fart joke in a video contest entry.”  Three other videos also won 500 bucks each and you can see them here:

http://www.appsecinc.com/videosmackdown/watch.html

The deadline for the Louisiana Hot Sauce video contest was on my calendar for probably 3 months but I never got around to shooting an entry.  Probably for the best since the winners were announced yesterday and I don’t think I could have topped two of them.  The second place winner is just ok but the first and third place winning videos are great.  I’ll post all three below.

The best video contest entries are those that include a quick moment of magic that makes the viewer want to watch the video again as soon as it’s over.  As I was watching the first place winner I was thinking “oh this is neat, and it’s making me hungry…very effective…I can see….whoa!….HOW DID THEY DO THAT!?!”  Watch the first place winner and you’ll know the “whoa!” moment as soon as it happens.   Very nice work.

First place.  Prize: $5,000

Second Place.  Prize:  $2,500

Third Place.  Prize:  $500

Special congratulations to friend of VCN, Danny Winn for taking third place.  That song is good enough to be Louisiana Hot Sauce’s actual jingle!

Looks like Louisiana Hot Sauce got around 80 entries for this contest.  That’s a pretty good number for a contest of this size.  If you’re interested, you can see all the other entries on the company’s youtube channel.

There are a lot of video contests that I regret entering last year.  Some of them were terribly run, others wasted contestants time by requiring them to shill for votes and still others yielded winners that were so inexplicably bad that you couldn’t help but wonder if maybe the whole thing had been rigged.

But there’s one 2009 contest I regret NOT entering; the Skinit.com TV challenge. Skinit makes sticker-type things that are designed to fit any kind of electronic device you can think of.  Visit their site and you’ll get what I’m talking about:  Skinit.com.  Anyway, I was so impressed with their contest that after it ended I reviewed it in an article called “Profile of a Great contest: Skinit.com.”  I interviewed a nice representative from Skinit for that piece named Shreya and last week, she e-mailed to let me know that Skinit had just announced that they were bringing the contest back for 2010 and that it was going to be even bigger than last year.

And she wasn’t kidding.  Last year, the first place winner took home $10,000, a runner-up got $5,000 and the winner of the best storyboard entry also go $5,000.  This year, there will be 6 categories: 1. Consumer Electronics ( 30 sec) 2. Consumer Electronics (60 sec) 3. Tailgate Packs (30 sec) 4. Tailgate Packs (60 sec) 5. WallSkins (30 sec) 6. WallSkins (60 sec)

One winner in each category will get $5,000 and then one overall winner will be awarded and extra $20,000.  And as a bonus, the winning entry (and maybe even some of the runners-up) will have the chance to be shown on TV.

Last year, I entered just about any contest I could find if I thought I had a chance of winning.  But this year I’m really trying to focus my efforts.  And the skinit challenge is just the type of contest I love coming across.  My favorite contests are those that provide lots of opportunities for people to win.  It’d be awesome to win $25,000 but winning 5 grand would be pretty sweet too.  The only thing that worries me is that the rules say that “popularity/public vote” will be one of the criteria used to determine the winners.

Hopefully it will not be a significant factor though.  I don’t care how much money is at stake, I’ve pretty much sworn off all video contests that let “the public” pick the winners because those winners invariably turn out to be whoever has the largest social network or the time to vote for themselves over and over and over.  But based on the skinit rules, it doesn’t seem like this is going to just be a popularity contest.

The deadline to enter the contest is still 99 days away so there’s lots of time to plan for this one.  I for sure will be entering and I’m planning on going completely overboard….assuming I can think of an idea, that is.

One thing I love about video contests is that a lot of them have really bizarre premises.  Take for example the “Are you an Avodisic?” contest sponsored by Mexican Avocados. First, it’s always a little funny when PR people try and promote basic food items like pork or Wisconsin cheese.  But this contest gets even weirder when you read the details.  They were looking for people to make short films about avocados that portrayed them as being sexy, sensual “love fruits.”  The promo video for the contest literally featured a talking avacado wearing a garter belt that moaned orgasmically as “she” explained the official rules. (sadly, that video seems to have been taken down.)  UPDATE: One of the “PR people” behind this contest apparently has a very good sense of humor.  He wrote me today and mentioned the orgasmic avocado video could be found here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IOhGX_IYRQ.  The video is safe-for-work but the audio isn’t!

The contest ended recently and it looks like a lot of people entered.  As you can guess, most of the entries were really, f&*%ing, weird.  There were three categories in the contest; Best Recipe, Most Entertaining and Most Original.  One winner in each category was selected and those winner each got $2,000.  You can see all the winners here:

http://www.avocadosfrommexico.com/avodisiac/Index.aspx

But here’s my favorite of the three:

Winner, Most Original.  Prize: $2,000.

I’m amazed at the amount of work some filmmakers put into their contest entries.  The guy who made that video explained on youtube that the entry is made up of more than 500 still photos.  Check out this making-of video to see just how this guy managed to pull of such an awesome entry:

Since the dawn of man, pistachios have been just these tasty little nuts that always happened to be around exactly when you were craving them.   No one ever planned ahead of time to buy Pistachios, they just appeared when they were needed.  But last year, a brand called “Wonderful Pistachios” decided this had gone on long enough so they started putting Pistachios in pretty bags and then marketed the f&*% out of them with commercials featuring Z-list celebrities like Levi Johnston.

One tier of the company’s marketing campaign was a commercial contest.  Wonderful Pistachios picked 10 finalist videos and then let “the public” decide the best one.  First place was good for $25,000.  The people have spoken and here’s the winner:

First Place.  Prize: $25,000

Some of the finalists were pretty lame so I’m kind of surprised the public vote yielded a decent winner.  The video’s got nice production values, fancy editing, good music and lots of nut shots (you know, shots of nuts.)  So it’s a job well done.  But I think the guy that made THIS entry got robbed:

Runner up.  Prize:  $500.  Prize declined by filmmaker

Apparently, the director of that entry thinks he was robbed too.  His name is Michael Boudin and he’s won more that $60K in various video contests.  I know that because a few weeks ago, Films4Prizes.com did a video Q&A with him.  You can see it here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXT77SZHU3s

After the winner was picked, Michael was offered a $500 runner-up prize.  He turned it down though.  I’ll cash just about any check that comes my way but I think he made the right call.  As Michael explains on youtube, he believes in his concept and plans to re-shoot the idea for a different contest.  If he had accepted the 500 bucks, Wonderful Pistachios would have been able to do whatever they wanted with the video, concept and script.  Basically they offered to buy it for a few hundred bucks and said “no deal.”

So think about that the next time you see a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo in a contest’s official rules that state that all entries become the property of the sponsor once you submit them.  That’s total B.S.  Your work is yours until you SIGN over your rights of ownership.  You always have a right to say, “No thanks” and you shouldn’t accept just any amount a company offers if you don’t think it’s a fair price for your work.

If you’ve never heard of Mofilm, it’s….well, it’s hard to describe.  If a film festival and an online video contest could have a baby, it’d look like Mofilm.  It’s a website/organization that runs big online video contests in conjunction with top tier, international film festivals.   But unlike a typical video contest, sometimes the sponsors want to see creative entries that have nothing to do with their products.  But then again, some sponsors are looking for straight up commercials or shorts that incorporate their stuff in unique ways.

The Barcelona Film Festival competition is the perfect example of a Mofilm contest.  It was made up of two parts; one was the Pepsi “60 seconds to Refresh Your World” Movie Competition and the other was the Barcelona 2010: Make An Ad Video Competition.

Entries for the Pepsi contest were supposed to have nothing to do with Pepsi.  Filmmakers were instructed to make awesome short films that were relevant to the themes of the contest.  700 videos from 112 countries (what!?) were submitted and it’s no wonder.  Five 1^st place winners each won trips to the 2010 Barcelona Film Fest.  I can’t embed videos from Mofilm so click here to view the Pepsi winners:

http://www.mofilm.com/competitions/pepsi2010/

I recommend “GPS” and “No Vegetables.”  At the Barcelona fest, one entry will be selected as the Grand Prize winner.  The filmmaker will receive $10,000 and $20,000 to shoot a commercial that Pepsi will air on TV.

The other half of the contest was the more familiar, Make an Ad competition.  Five brads: Best Buy, AT&T, Yoplait, Chevy and Samsung all participated and gave out more trips to Barcelona and other big prizes.  You can see the winner for each of the brands here:

http://www.mofilm.com/competitions/barcelona2010

I recommend “Changing Lives” shot for Samsung.  It starts out slow but gets very creative as it goes on.

The funny thing about Mofilm is that if you win a trip to one of their sponsor film festivals you don’t get much notice.  The Barcelona winners were just told on Monday that they had won.  But the Barcelona film fest starts on February 15^th!  Hope the winners all had passports already or they’re outta luck.