It feels like Magic Bullet’s “Kitchen Magician” contest has been running forever but last week they finally crowned their winner. Here she is:
Grand Prize Winner. Prize: $10,000 and a trip to Los Angeles:
Click to watch
Yep, the winner’s entry was shot with an iPhone. But this wasn’t really a contest where quality mattered. This was really more about shooting an audition for a Magic Bullet infomercial. In the first round, the three contestants with the most votes got to go to LA and shoot a two-minute, mini-infomercial. Then a panel of judges watched the infomercials and picked their favorite host as their grand prize winner.
Hmmmm….I feel like I should say more about this contest but there isn’t really anything else to cover. I guess I could talk about the Magic Bullet for a bit. Hey, am I the only person that’s creeped out by the name “The Magic Bullet?” The “magic bullet” is what killed JFK! I know it’s been almost 50 years since the Kennedy assassination but it still feels too soon to appropriate the phrase “The Magic Bullet” and turn it into a thing that makes guacamole. I happen to think “The Bay of Pigs” would be a pretty clever name for a seaside BBQ place but that doesn’t mean I would ever eat there.
There are a lot of reasons to like Poptent. But probably the best thing about the site is that their clients often wind up buying more videos then they have to after an assignment ends. Case in point, Dell computers just bought 10 Poptent-made promos for $10,000 a piece. Originally they were committed to buy only 4 videos. But the quality of the submissions was so high that Dell decided to spend an extra $60,000 on 6 more videos. This is the type of thing that just doesn’t happen in standard video contests. Actually, if this Dell assignment was a standard video contest, it would have turned out to be one of the biggest contests in history. Seriously, 10 videos being purchased for $10,000 a piece is kind of amazing.
I’m not going to post all 10 videos but here are a few of my favorites. You can see all the results here. If you’re not familiar with this assignment, it was supposed to portray IT people as heroes who save the day with Dell technology. Also, if filmmakers didn’t have access to the right kind of Dell laptop or smart phone they were supposed to use any laptop or phone they could find and then do a re-shoot with the real stuff later. So if you notice some non-Dell products in these videos, that’s why.
Purchased by Dell. Price: $10,000 each:
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 23rd 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.
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.
