Hey folks, It’s your BFF for life Beardy, here. Every year we see a giant spike in traffic thanks to our coverage of the Crash the Super Bowl contest and I always like to do a quick post welcoming our new readers to the site. And man, did we get a lot of new readers last month! During the summer I made some SEO changes to VCN that caused traffic to increase by about 300%. So when you throw a bunch of CTSB traffic on top of those figures the results are pretty amazing. November 2011 turned out to be our biggest month ever with 13,901 Unique Visitors. To quote the great Charles Dickens, that shite is redonkulous!
Here are few other random things I want to mention:
If you’re here for Crash the SuperBowl info, we’ll be running a whole bunch of posts about the contest over the next 2 1/2 months. Next week we’ll even be featuring an interview with one of the 2011 CTSB finalists. And of course, we’ll post the Top 5 videos (along with reviews and analysis) as soon as Doritos makes the results public.
Next I want to say Thanks to all the filmmakers out there that sent in the links to their Doritos entries. I’ve decided to extend my “free mini-review offer” for a few more days. So far, I’ve crtiqued more than 100 submissions and I am pretty sure that at least one or two of the videos I’ve seen will wind up making the finals. If you’d still like to get a mini-review of your ad, please post the link in the comment section of this article: videocontestnews.com/2011/11/21/we-want-to-see-your-crash-the-super-bowl-entries/
As I’ve mentioned, I’m trying to do the impossible this month. I’m trying to watch at least a few seconds of every, single Crash the Super Bowl entry. (By the way, there were just under 5,000 submissions this year.) My goal is to compile a list of the 50 or so best submissions. The list will be posted on December 14th.
If you’re a new reader, I just want to mention that Video Contest News is a year-round operation. We run two or three posts a week about different contests. If you’re having a problem with a contest, let us know! Companies hate bad publicity and a single article about a crappy contest can sometimes inspire the sponsors to fix whatever has gone wrong. Or hey, you can even let us know if you have some good news to report! We post a lot of winning entries so if you’ve recently won a nice contest prize, I want to hear about it. You can reach me here: VideoContestNews@gmail.com.
Finally, if you like you can only stand to read 140 characters of video contest news at a time, follow us on twitter here. This month we’ll be “following back” all of our new followers!
I don’t know what’s changed but the amount of people who visit this website on a daily basis has just been going up and up all summer! And that’s weird because usually the summer is VCN’s slowest time of the year. But as far as traffic goes, July was our 3rd biggest month of 2011 and it looks like August’s numbers are going to crush July’s. Maybe we moved up the google rankings a bit or maybe this is just another sign of how popular video contests in general are getting. But I think one thing that’s happening is that the number of “regular readers” we get really shot up this year. So if you’re one of those people who have us bookmarked and who check the site every week (or even every day!) thank you for your support!
We’re now getting so much traffic that I feel like I’m not really keeping up with the demand for new content. This used to be a “2 posts a week” type of blog. But lately I’ve been trying to do 3 posts a week. For future reference, new posts will usually go up on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Because VCN will be doing more posts per week, I’ve decided that it might be cool if I let someone else stand on my soapbox every once in a while.
So for the first time ever, Video Contest News will be accepting submissions for “Guest Blog Posts.” If you care about video contests enough to read this blog, you probably have some strong thoughts and opinions about this growing micro-genre of filmmaking. I’ll consider all types of articles as long as what you write is true and won’t get me sued. So if you want to brag about your latest big win or if you want to share your secret strategies or if you just want to bitch about some crappy contest where you got screwed over somehow, let me know. Hell…I might even let you plug your contest-related website or post a vote requests if those plugs and requests are part of an article that someone would actually want to read.
I’m kind of psyched about this idea and I’m looking forward to hearing what you folks have to say. I think adding other voices to this site will give it a little more depth and variety, if you know what I mean. For now, my plan is to ease into this and run just 2 guest posts a month. But if things work out, I might start running a guest blog every wednesday. So if you have an idea for a guest post, e-mail me your suggestion: VideoContestNews@gmail.com. Thanks!
About 2 weeks ago I got word that I had won first place in Royal Purple Motor Oil’s “Reel Wars” video contest and the good people at RP said that one of their representatives would hand deliver to me a check for $5,000. But in addition to that tiny, cashable check, they also wanted to present me with a giant. novelty check. And I’ll tell you what….I was super stoked. I’ve won a lot of video contests in the last few years but somehow, this would be my first big, fake check! True to their word, a team from royal purple showed up at my door and gave me this….
I'm going to giant Las Vegas and putting all this on Red.
You know what’s really funny about that check? It has a check number on it; number 508. I have to wonder, does Royal Purple have a giant, novelty check book? And did 507 other giant checks get issued before I recived this one?
By the way, if you’re interested, here’s the video that won the contest for me.
Well, there’s only one day left to enter Gain detergent’s massive “Smell like a Million Bucks” video contest. Since view counts help determine which videos make the finals, a few weeks back I encouraged readers to send me their submissions so that I could post them. The “viewing” deadline isn’t until July 11th so why not help these fine folks out by watching their videos? Before you can view any of the Gain entries, you first need to allow the Gain app on Facebook. Click here to do that: https://apps.facebook.com/gainmillionbucks
Are you back? Good. If you allowed the app you can now watch the entries. To view a video, click on the image. I’ll post the videos that were shot by long-time VCN readers first because I love them the most.
Now, I also entered this contest but because I’m classy I’ll post my own video last. It just got approved on Friday and thanks to the holiday weekend I’m way behind on views. So if you can spare a click, let me have it!
If anyone else who entered the Gain contest would like their entry posted here, just send me an e-mail and VideoContestNews@gmail.com and I’ll add it to this post.
Video “assignments” that are run on websites like Poptent, Tongal and Zooppa are great because the sponsors often use the purchased/winning submissions as actual pieces of advertising. But personally I still love straight up, old school video contests. (By “old school” I mean the kind of contests companies were running all of 2 years ago.) I’m talking about the type of thing where a company runs a contest kind of just for fun and invites their fans and customers to submit videos. When people aren’t worried about creating brand-appropriate commercials they’re free to go crazy and do some really goofy stuff. Case in point, Royal Purple’s Reel Wars video contest. RP got some really off-the-wall submissions for this one. I especially liked this video that made the finals. I figured a beautiful russian girl + a cool car + a baby duck would = a win. But Here’s the video that came out on top:
Grand Prize Winner. Prize: $5,000.
Boosh! Yep, that was my entry and man and I happy to be the winner. Royal Purple really ran a great contest. Even though they got more than 40 entries, RP promised to give every contestant a case of Royal Purple motor oil or a $100 worth of merchandise from their online store. That is a really classy move. It shows contestants that you actually appreciate the time and effort they put into making their entries. And Royal Purple even said they want to set up an interview with me and one of the judges where he’ll present me with a giant novelty check. No joke: Receiving a giant novelty check is one of my Life Goals! So I guess I can cross that particular item the bucket list.
Well, I’m going to do some celebrating this weekend, that’s for sure. Have a happy Friday everybody. But heads up…be sure to check back here early next week. We’re going to be announcing a MAJOR piece of video contest news in a few days. I can’t talk about it yet because I’m under a press embargo. (My second this week!) But I will tell you this, it’s a really SUPER piece of news. I’m not sure yet when the embargo will be lifted but it should be Wednesday at the latest.
When it comes to entering video contests, I am the king of procrastinators. I’ve known about the “Success Yearbook” video contest being sponsored by Universitydecisions.com for three months now but I waited until the last week to shoot my entry. Votes are part of a video’s final score and the dealine to vote is March 31st at 11:59PM!!! So I need to hustle and get a few votes up on the board while I still can! If you have 7 seconds to spare, I’d greatly appreciate it if you voted for my submission.
Then click the vote button and fill in the Captcha that pops up. That’s it!
Look! It's Beardy with and without a beard!! Click the image to vote!
For this contest, I had to create a video describing a college “success story.” Basically you’re supposed to explain how going to college helped you succeed in life. But I thought I’d swing for the fences and do a Top 10 list of ways college made my life better. I would absolutely lose my mind (with happiness) if I won this contest. The prize is up to $10,000 to pay off the winner’s student loans. I’ll tell you, if I could obliterate my student loan by winning this contest it would be one of the sweetest victories of my life. So please, help a guy out and cast your vote before time runs out. THANKS!!
Though January is already 19 days old it still feels like we’re in that gray area between the old year and the new. So before we get too deep into 2011 I thought we could take a look back at the top video contest entries of 2010.
Now I could ramble on for a paragraph or two about how much video contests changed in 2010, the record-breaking amounts of money that were won and the ways technology has enabled freelance filmmakers to create more professional looking videos. And then I could top it off by explaining why it’s a safe bet to say that User-generated content is going to be an important part of the future of advertising and blah, blah, blah. But anyone reading this probably already knows all that stuff! The factors I just listed are the reasons we all keep making video contest entries; the money and exposure are awesome and the rewards just keep keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
So let’s skip the exposition and get right to the good stuff; VCN’s VIDEO CONTEST ENTRY OF THE YEAR! Now I know what you’re thinking…it’s got to be “Underdog,” the Crash the Super Bowl entry that aired during the Super Bowl, scored #2 on the USA Today Ad Meter and won its creators a $600,000 bonus, right? Wrong! That choice would be to easy. Instead I’ve decided to recognize a different 2010 Crash the Super Bowl winner; SNACK ATTACK SAMURAI by Ben Krueger and Cole Koehler!
2010 Crash the Super Bowl finalist. Prize: $25,000 and aired during the Super Bowl:
So why Snack Attack Samurai? Well to start, it’s a great ad, it made it to the Crash the Super Bowl finals and it scored enough votes to air during the 2010 Super Bowl. But this humble, little video earns top honors this year not because of how much money it won (just $25,000!) but because of what it accomplished. By a fluke of timing, Snack Attack Samurai wound up playing near the end of last year’s Super Bowl right during a particularly exciting moment in the game. The next day, Nielson announced that the ad wound up being the MOST WATCHED COMMERCIAL IN THE HISTORY OF TELEVISION.
Like I said, this sort of happened by chance but it is still an incredible accomplishment. 100 Million people in the United States saw this ad on Super Sunday. That’s 1 out of 3 Americans. More people saw that first airing of Snack Attack Samurai than saw Avatar during its entire theatrical run. So why is this a big deal? It’s a big deal because in the roughly 80 year history of television, the commercial that wound up with the biggest audience ever wasn’t made by a team of marketing geniuses from Madison Avenue and it wasn’t produced by a humongous production company and it didn’t feature any big name stars. It was made by two dudes in Minnesota and it cost a tiny fraction of what most regular TV commercials cost. And here’s the craziest part of all…..those 100 million viewers? THEY DIDN’T CARE WHO MADE THE AD OR WHERE IT CAME FROM. Though a lot of them probably knew Snack Attack Samurai was part of the Crash the Super Bowl contest, to most viewers it was just another Super Bowl commercial. And to me folks, that means we’re entering an age when there aren’t any more “big guys” and “little guys;” there will only be the “talented” and the “untalented.” The playing field is getting very even, very quickly.
So that’s why Snack Attack Samurai gets our “entry of the year award.” But what was the BEST contest entry of the year? Well, chances are you’ve probably never seen this one. Our pick for the Best entry of 2010 was a short film called NUIT BLANCHE. It won first place and 100 grand in LG’s “Life’s Good” oneline film fest. The goal of the contest was to create an HD video based on the theme, “Life’s Good.” Though I suspect that Nuit Blanche wasn’t specifically shot for the contest it’s undeniably awesome and was THE BEST VIDEO CONTEST ENTRY OF THE YEAR:
Grand Prize Winner, LG’s Life’s Good HD Film Fest. Prize: $100,000:
Crazy right?? If you wanna have your mind blow, check out this “making of Nuit Blanche” video. Pretty much every effect was done digitally which means in 5 years, high school kids will probably be making videos with equally sophisticated effects.
Next up, here’s THE BIGGEST WINNER OF 2010. Yep, it’s UNDERDOG from the Crash the Super Bowl contest.
Crash the Super Bowl winner. Prizes: Won $625,000 and aired during the Super Bowl:
I think this video might also deserve the unofficial title of “Beardy’s Favorite Winner of the year.” The $600,000 that Underdog won was technically a bonus for scoring well on the USA Today Ad meter. Those bonuses were not guaranteed so you could also consider our next ad to be the “Biggest Winner of the year.” But let’s call this one THE WINNER OF THE BIGGEST GUARANTEED CONTEST PRIZE. It’s entitled “Russell’s Notebook and it won first place and $250,000 in the big Godaddy summer video contest.
Grand Prize Winner, Godaddy Summer contest. Prize: $250,000:
Can't embed this one so click to view
$250,000 by the way happens to the be largest guaranteed video contest prize EVER. The ad has also supposedly played on TV but I haven’t seen it air myself.
Next up, here’s THE MOST VIRAL VIDEO CONTEST ENTRY OF 2010:
Crash the Super Bowl Finalist. Prize: Won $25,000 and aired during the Super Bowl:
EVERYBODY (and their Momma) has watched and re-watched this ad. I didn’t like it when I first saw it but it really grew on me. Doritos really knew what they were during when they picked House Rules as a finalist last year. The ad became a viral hit even before the Super Bowl and to date it’s been viewed almost 10 Million times on the Crash the Super Bowl youtube channel alone.
So those were the big winners of 2010. But here’s a quick list of some of the other video contest entries that scored big last year.
These two commercials were made for a Poptent Assignment for Quiznos. The ads wound up airing on TV for months and they are so well made that I’m guessing few viewers would ever guess they weren’t produced by Quizno’s regular ad firm:
VALUE MENU! Purchased by Quiznos. Price: $7,500.
U-543. Purchased by Quiznos. Price: $7,500.
Godaddy actually ran two big video contests in 2010; a “Spring” contest and a “Summer” contest. The winner of the “Spring” contest and $100,000 was entitled “Go Momma” and the ad aired on TV a bit. But I think the big winner of that contest was actually the SECOND Place ad; FingerFighting.com:
Second Place Winner, Godaddy Spring Contest. Prize: $50,000:
Though Fingerfighting.com won less money, Godaddy aired it on TV like crazy. I still see it run every once in a while! And the Phoenix-based filmmakers who made it actually won another $25,000 runner-up prize in Godaddy’s Summer Contest with an ad called Isawbigfoot.co. I talked to the director of the ad a few weeks back and he said Godaddy is actually airing the ad in India.
Here’s another video contest entry that made it to TV. This promo was shot for a Zooppa-run contest for TMZ and won first place.
First Place Winner, TMZ promo contest. Prize: $10,000:
First Place Winner, Are You Debit Smart Contest. Prize: $5,000:
HUMAN HEAD. Purchased by Fed-ex via Poptent’s Fed-Ex assignment. Price: $5,000.
1/20 UPDATE: A reader sent me a link to this video that won the Mofilm American Idol Walmart competition. Apparently this ad even aired during the American Idol Finale. It’s pretty good. Prizes won include a trip to LA, tickets to the American Idol finale and thousands of dollars in cash and Walmart Gift cards.
It’s a Festivus miracle! The travel website Monograms recently ran two video assignments via Poptent.net and the company wound up purchasing two different promos for use online. And one of those videos just happened to be mine. Score! As you’ll see from the two ads, Monograms is targeting a specific demographic and wanted to emphasis a lot of their key features. Here’s the video that sold from the first Monograms assignment. It was made by Poptent members Mark W. Gray & Scotty Well:
Purchased by Monograms. Price: $7,500:
After Monograms purchased the above video they decided they could use another one. So Poptent ran a special “Invitation Only” assignment and invited a small number of experienced members to submit promos. I think everyone who submitted had already sold at least one video thanks to poptent so the competition was really, really tight. There were some excellent videos submitted so I feel like I did get a little lucky with this one. Here’s my video:
Purchased by Monograms. Price: $5,000:
I haven’t gotten all the details yet about when or where the promos will be used. But I do know the company is going to request a few edits first. Now that I watch it with a fresh eye I think I could cut the first 15 seconds and just start with the husband looking up hotels on the computer. Anyways, Mongrams looks like a really easy way to book vacations so go check ‘em out: http://www.monogramstravel.com/
And if you’ve read all the way to the bottom of the post I can take that to mean that you’re at least a little interested in my non-VCN endeavors. So if you’re into such things, how about following my real, non-Beardy persona on Twitter? I just joined so I could certainly use some followers to help me look like less of a loser: http://twitter.com/I_Crapbot
