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Posts Tagged ‘contest’

Godaddy.com’s $175,000 video contest

Posted by Beardy on March 1st, 2010

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.

Louisiana Hot Sauce winners

Posted by Beardy on February 23rd, 2010

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.

A can’t-miss contest; Skinit.com’s TV challenge

Posted by Beardy on February 21st, 2010

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.

Wonderful Pistachio’s “Get Crackin’” winners

Posted by Beardy on February 15th, 2010

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.

Shenanigans in the LG “Life’s Good” HD contest?

Posted by Beardy on February 11th, 2010

Last week I posted the winner of the “Life’s Good” HD online film fest sponsored by LG. The winner was a very, very impressive HD short film called “Nuit Blanche.” You can see it by clicking here. But frequent video contest winner and friend of VCN, Lucas Ridley wrote me and explained that the whole contest was sort of one big clusterf%&k. Lucas is a hang glider and submitted an excellent entry in LG’s “Sports” category. You can see it here: A Leg to Fly on.

Though he submitted his entry on time and followed all the rules, for some weird reason, LG basically acted as if the entry didn’t exist. Lucas’ dealings with LG were so odd that I asked him to share his story. This is from Lucas:

Here’s the history:

* Made this film specifically for this contest in about a weeks time

* Made the Oct 16th deadline (had to mail in a physical DVD)

* Receive identical emails (on 16th and 17th) from two different people asking if this has been entered any where before and has it won any awards, my responses go unacknowledged.

* entries begin to appear on their website and youtube channel, except mine so I emailed on Oct 22nd asking when and where mine will be viewable, same day response was: “We’re not posting anything new for a while till we process the entries.”

* Nov 3 emailed to see if I could post the video to my personal account, response again came the same day: “OK to post on your personal acct.”

* Email sent on Nov 16th goes unanswered (month after entry deadline and my video is still not up anywhere): “Hi, I’ve looked at your updated website and youtube page and can’t find my submission, “A Leg to Fly On” on either of them? I’m kind of worried about what that means? Can you please give me a heads up? Thanks”

* Email sent on Nov 23rd gets answered the next day: “Hi, I’m just following up from my email a week ago since I haven’t heard anything yet.

From the response I received when I sent in my video it seemed that there wasn’t any problem with my video but I still don’t see it up on your youtube channel or your website. Please inform me of the status of my short film. Also, I never read in the official rules anything about a top 12, but there is a top 12 on your youtube page. Please let me know, I spent a lot of time and energy on this and I’m not getting a response back. Thank you” >>>>their response>>>> “Lucas

Not all films entered were posted on the LG FilmFest YouTube site. Keep watching the lgfilmfest.com site for more news about contenders.” >>>> That was the last I heard from them – and they never posted any more news about contenders.

* Over a month goes by and still my video is not viewable on their youtube channel nor on their website so I email them again on Jan 1st to no response: “… I was hoping you could give me a quick update on my film? I was also looking for the contest rules, but they were taken down …”

* Jan 10th follow up email with no response: “Hi, 10 days ago I emailed about getting information on where my short film is since I still have not seen it displayed on your site or on your youtube channel. Please advise, thank you”

* Jan 25th, my last email to them: “Hi, I am very concerned now that I have not heard any news or received a response from this email address in two months and the winners will be announced soon. Is my video being seriously considered for this contest? Thanks”

If you managed to read through that, there was no indication that my entry would have been disqualified for any reason, and they acknowledge that they did receive it.

Sketchiness:

* Lack of communication after it was obvious they were never going to put my video up on their website (my entry that I posted to my personal youtube acct has more views than all of the entries in the Sports category combined, so it’s not like it wasn’t watchable).

* Removing the official rules from their website

* they originally had entries like “The Moon – Vancouver Film School” which is like a year old, and clearly not made for this contest, but they renamed it something else and put it up like it was an entry, but since have taken it down.

* The quality of the other entries seem like they might be a similar story. Nothing created specifically for this contest (which wasn’t part of the contest rules or anything – to my memory at least since they’ve taken the rules down too -, just adds to the peculiarity), but it seems they just hand picked existing films out there, to give the illusion of high quality associated with the brand LG.

* There are only 5 entries shown for the Sports category. So it wouldn’t be a limitation of space. (did i mention that my single video has more views than all 5 of those entries combined? Not bragging, but just saying, it’s not like my video was unwatchable)

* The duplicate emails from two different email addresses asking if my film had won any awards before, of which I never heard a response from either, after my response to them.

* The “Top 12 Films” category on their youtube channel, now has been changed to just “Top Films” – neither of which were outlined in the official rules (again, to the best of my memory, but I’m 99.99% sure about this, since they took down their official rules)

My concern comes from a worry about the mistreatment of creators of content, like those reading this right now. My advice for the future is to never waste your time creating content for an LG contest in the future, because it won’t be given a fair chance and you will be ignored at best (unless it is a contest properly administered through youtube, like the one they did about two years back). I have learned, and advise others to do this, to copy and save the official rules of any contest you enter so you have something to fall back on if the rules are mischievously taken down, which if they are, you probably aren’t going to hear back from them anyways, but it never hurts.

I feel like this contest was just one in disguise to attract attention. Despite feeling like I fell into some advertising trap portrayed as a legitimate contest, I did still enjoy creating a short film that I’m proud of and others have seemed to enjoy, but I have learned my lesson to stay away from LG in the future and encourage others to do the same (to clarify this was LG Canada who put on the contest). Instead, spend your time on real contests that give our community a platform to display true user-generated work with a great deal of feedback and moderation and the best example of that so far has been the Doritos contest and I hope other contests begin to rise to that bar they’ve set, because this one feels like it took that bar and started clubbing baby seals with it. Okay, maybe that was a harsh ending, but a decent south park reference any way. What are your all’s thoughts on this? Did anyone else out there submit to this contest?

Ok, you’re back with Beardy now. This is not the first time a suspiciously amazing video has won an LG video contest. Last summer, I shot an entry for a contest were people where supposed to dance to the theme song for the new remake of FAME. The Fame video contest was also sponsored by LG and at the last minute, an OUTRAGEOUS, over the top entry was submitted and wound up winning the $50,000 grand prize. It’s called, The Art of Fame.

The Art of Fame and Nuit Blanche are the two most ELABORATE and professional video contest entries I have ever seen. And both were made for video contests sponsored by LG. Sure, both contests had big grand prizes and big money always attracts some pros, but is it possible that LG might be hiring or soliciting….ringers? The winner of the $100,000 HD fest grand prize works for a well-known production company and the short was not created for the LG contest. Is it possible that maybe someone at LG saw the short somewhere and then encouraged the filmmaker to enter it?

Sound far-fetched and pointless? Well, guess what? The head of a tech company once strongly encouraged me to enter his video contest. The contest was his idea and he wasn’t happy with the submissions so went looking for someone who could do just want he wanted. He saw some music videos I made on youtube and said if I made a similar music video for his contest I’d have a very good chance of winning <wink, wink.> We stayed in touch during the whole production process and sure enough, I won. My video was by far the best submission and the video even went viral but I never would have entered if I hadn’t been recruited by the sole judge of the contest. So….ringers do happen.

Anybody else enter the LG contest? If so, did you get jerked around at all?

Careerbuilder’s re-made “Hire My TV ad” superbowl commercials

Posted by Beardy on January 21st, 2010

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.

Crash the Superbowl: Ad Meter Predictions

Posted by Beardy on January 17th, 2010

A few posts back I said I’d be reviewing all 6 of Doritos’s Crash the Superbowl finalists. Well, after discovering a free graph making program on-line where you can make the points look like little Doritos, I’ve decided to do something way geekier. Instead of doing straight reviews, I’m going to throw some hardcore graph action in your face and try to predict how each commercial might score on the real USA Today Ad Meter.

These graphs won’t show my personal opinions. Rather, they will show what I expect the average opinions of everyone in the USA Today focus group might be. If you missed our explanation the other day about how the USA Today Superbowl ad meter works, check it out here. Remember, USA Today’s focus groups include people from all walks of life. So no matter how much 90% of the group likes a certain ad, there will always be at least a few people who dislike it.

Predicting how a commercial will score on the Ad Meter isn’t actually that tough. The moments that people will score highly are easy to identify. So even if the scores on these graphs don’t match what the real scores would look like, the peaks and valleys will appear in the same places. So here we go. I’ll put the ads in order of best scoring to worst:

1. UNDERDOG. PREDICTED SCORE: 8.19

SUMMARY: The guys who made this spot knew what they were doing. It’s essentially designed to score well in the Ad Meter. EVERYONE loves dogs and EVERYONE hates jerks that are mean to dogs. And history is on the side of this video. Remember that Budweiser commercial where the dog trains the Clydesdale, Rocky-style? That scored 1^st on the ad meter in 2008. Like I said, everyone loves dogs. Plus, the cuteness and comedy in this ad start early which means which means viewers will “like it” for longer. Based on last year’s ad meter results, a score of 8.19 would get Underdog into the Top 3.

2. SNACK ATTACK SAMURAI. PREDICTED SCORE: 7.46

SUMMARY: This spot isn’t the most original submission I’ve seen but I bet it will make a lot of people smile. It’s got kind a kooky vibe that I think viewers will find appealing, even if they don’t know why. It LOOKS funny and FEELS funny, so even if it’s not actually super hilarious, I think it will score decently.

3. KIDS THESE DAYS. PREDICTED SCORE: 7.15

SUMMARY: Since a commercial’s final ad meter score is an average of how every second of the ad scored, Kids These Days probably won’t fair too well since it takes a while for the comedy to start. But the main gag is a strong, likable one. After Mr. Popped Collar gets shocked, I’m guessing viewers will keep their dials turned up as a retro-active sign of appreciation.

4. THE SMACKOUT. PREDICTED SCORE: 7.02

SUMMARY: This spot was perfectly cast. Unfortunately, it wasn’t perfectly shot. The color is just plain messed up. I like this story and think it was very well acted but it looks bad at times and I think that will be a turn off to viewers. The use of cleavage was also a little gratuitous and I suspect a lot of women will punish this ad by keeping the score a little lower than is reasonable. The slapstick is funny but not really Superbowl funny and I don’t think many viewers will be extremely impressed.

5. CASKET. PREDICTED SCORE: 6.85

SUMMARY: This is the best looking of all the CTSB finalists but all the other commercials airing during the superbowl will look as good as “Casket” or better. So production values won’t get them much ad meter juice. (Though I think the pretty church setting might result in an initial spike) This video has two things going against it; One, the protagonist’s plan is cruel and feels like a weak excuse for the guy to be in the casket and two, I think the “dead” man was miscast. Much of this commercial’s comedy comes from looks on the “dead” man’s face. I think the actor that was cast is simply annoying looking and I bet a lot of viewers would agree with me.

6. HOUSE RULES. PREDICTED SCORE: 6.29

SUMMARY: My gut reaction to this spot is that I like it. But unfortunately, because of the way it’s set up, it’s doomed to perform poorly on the ad meter. The graph tells the whole story. A whopping 22 seconds go by before the real comedy starts. That’s an eternity for a Superbowl commercial. I think that not only will viewers not start scoring the commercial positively until the action starts, I think some may even start scoring it negatively if they start getting bored.

When you look at each ad charted out like this, you kind of have to wonder why Doritos picked some of these ads for the finals. I mean, I was able to whip up these graphs in like an hour. Millions and millions of dollars are at stake in the Crash the Superbowl contest so it seems hard to believe that Doritos wouldn’t have somebody analyze each finalist’s chances in the Ad meter. Last year, a commercial needed to score at least a 7.49 just to make the top 10. So if Doritos did graph these out, then they already know that several of these videos just have zero chance of scoring “in the money.” Hmmm, could it be that’s what they’re counting on?

Help ensure that Crash the Superbowl will be back next year!

Posted by Beardy on January 12th, 2010

Not pictured: you.

It’s been a week now since Doritos announced their 6 Finalists in the Crash the Superbowl contest and it seems that the unanimous opinion of the people of the Internetz is that Dorito’s “Top 6” selections are….not wonderful, which is surprising because last year, all 5 Crash the Superbowl finalists were exceedingly wonderful! They were all tremendous, hilarious and totally original. (Well, that one with the cat wasn’t that hilarious but I’m trying to make a point here.) I hate to say it but pretty much every finalist commercial from last year is better than every finalist commercial this year. With one exception…but I’ll talk about that in a second.

I entered the Crash the Superbowl contest this time around and of course I would have loved to get to the finals. But because of the extreme level of quality seen in last year’s finalists, I didn’t get my hopes up. This was the first year I entered the competition and in all honesty, I saw my CTSB experience this year as a test run for next year. This year I figured out what I could pull together and for how much and in what type of time frame. So I wasn’t heart broken when I didn’t get an e-mail from Doritos before the official notify date. I was actually really looking forward to the announcement of the finalists so that I could see some kick ass video contest entries.

But there isn’t a ton of kick-ass going on in the official Top 6. All of the finalists are…ok. Two of them though are so technically flawed that I am stunned that they could have made it this far. A third has an inexplicably cruel story that makes absolutely no sense. But it looked slick so I guess that was good enough to make it this year. Not making the finals is not a big deal. But seeing sub-par ads reach the Top 6 really stings.

A bizarre mix of WIN and FAIL

So we’re all upset. But what can we do about it? Right now, I think the best course of action for all us disgruntled Doritos fans should be to start looking towards next year. The smartest thing we can do now is try to ensure that Doritos will bring the Crash the Superbowl contest back this fall.

How do we do that? By helping Doritos score another USA Today Ad meter win. As our pal Rummy once said, You go to war with the army you have, not the one you wish you had. That means instead of moaning about what videos SHOULD have made it to the finals, contestants should focus on ensuring that the best videos of the Top 6 make it to the Superbowl. Breaking into the Top 3 on the Ad Meter is the entire point of this year’s contest,. So if the selected commercials flop and don’t accomplish that goal, Doritos might decide to try something different in 2011.

So, for the next week or so, we will be reviewing all 6 of this year’s Crash the Superbowl finalists. Not only will we be critiquing these entries, but we will be analyzing their theoretical chances on the USA Today Ad Meter poll. We’ll be explaining which videos would have a fighting chance and which would be doomed to be remembered as the lamest spots of the game.

Spoiler alert! We have already been calculatin’ the odds of each video and have determined the entry that has the best chance of scoring a Top 3 spot is UNDERDOG. Not only does it have the best chances, it was actually my personal favorite video before the finalists were even announced! So in the case of Underdog, I was very happy to see it make the finals. We’ll have more on UNDERDOG and why we think it has what it takes to score another big win for Doritos, later. But since there are only 20 DAYS left to cast your votes, I wanted to declare Underdog as our official pick right now. If you look at the upper right hand corner of our sidebar, you’ll see a little daily reminder to vote. Click that banner and you’ll go right to Underdog’s page on the Crash the Superbowl site. And if you head to Doritoscontest.com, you can learn more about the entry and the guys who made it.

If you want another chance at Crashing the Superbowl, you first have to help make sure the contest comes back. So do like Beardy and vote everyday for the unstoppable juggernaut that is UNDERDOG!

AMC Technology winners

Posted by Beardy on January 8th, 2010

And now for something completely different….

As I said yesterday, if Crash the Superbowl was your first video contest experience, it shouldn’t be your last. Giant piles of money are just sitting out there on the web waiting to be claimed by any filmmaker willing to put in a little time and effort. I was stunned by the level of quality I saw in some of this year’s Doritos entries. If many of the filmmakers who participated in The Crash were to recycle their Doritos ideas for other video contests they’d walk away with plenty of big prizes.

Smaller money contests are definitely worth your time and energy because they are way, way easier to WIN than the big-money, high-profile competitions. Recently, a company called AMC technology held a video contest to promote their “Solutions for the Call Center” services. Because the company required that a lot of specific, technical info be included in the entries, only about 7 people entered. But AMC gave out three prizes: $2,500, 1,500 and $1,000. So anyone who entered at almost a 50% chance of winning some cash.

The theme of the contest was to show how AMC could help a business during the hectic holiday season. Here’s the winner:

First Place. Prize: $2,500.

Heh, heh. Guess what? That was my entry! Last year me and a friend went to a pub crawl called “SantaCon” where everyone dressed as Santas. So I had access to several santa suits. I bought one more, paid a few extras 30 bucks each to put the suits on and march around an office and kerblamo….2,500 bucks. The writing was tough because of all the tech-talk but the shoot only took about 2 hours. Editing probably took three. Max I put 15 hours into this. Tally all that up and I made $166 per hour (pre-tax.) Not to shabby. About a week and a half ago, I found out I won 3,500 in another contest so 2010 is only 8 days old and I’ve already got 6 Grand in checks coming to me thanks to video-contesting. So if you’re one of the 4,000 people who didn’t make it to the Crash the superbowl finals, quick feeling sorry for yourselves and making anti-Doritos facebook pages. Grab your camera and find a contest that is a little easier to win.

Doritos’ 2010 Crash the Superbowl Finalists

Posted by Beardy on January 5th, 2010

Well it’s finally D (for Doritos) day. Last night, at midnight central time, Doritos revealed the Top 6 finalists for their 2010 installment of the Crash the Superbowl commercial contest. The prize for making it to this round is $25,000 and a trip to the big game for each filmmaker.

Voting is now open and the public will decide which three of these submissions make it to the Superbowl. The finalists are:

“Underdog” AKA “Animal Cruelty” by jwsvoboda. Video #5584.

“The Smackout” by bhayword. Video #5511

“Casket” AKA “The Casket” by ms. Video #4374

“Snack Attack Samurai” by CBer. Video #1786

“House Rules” by Dejesus_77. Video #3713

“Kids These Days” by Blackmariastudios. Video #5427

You can watch all the videos and vote for your favorite at the Crash the Superbowl site.

I had figured that when the finalists were announced I would post the results and share my impressions but….I have no idea what to say here. There are two spots that I prefer but the rest are just…baffling. I know that I recommended that Doritos consider some entries for the top 6 that were rough around the edges but I never thought they’d choose entries that had actual technical flaws.

I am also feeling pretty burned about “The Casket” making the finals. As I’ve mentioned, my entry for the Crash the Superbowl contest, “Rest in Chips” was also about a guy who faked his death and in accordance with his fake last wish was buried in a casket full of Doritos that gets knocked over. As I explained in yesterday’s post and this post from November 19^th, I suspect that I might be the victim of plagiarism. If you watch both entries and ignore the superficial aesthetic elements (camera quality, location, actors, costumes) and compare the concept and story elements (fake funeral, a final wish, a casket of doritos, knocked over casket etc) it’s hard to deny that both videos MAY have both based on my original concept (which anyone could have seen in a storyboard I posted to youtube in October.) But even if I wasn’t plagiarized, my video was posted first. I never expected to make it to the finals but a major part of each entry’s score was “Originality.” And I believe that I read that if two similar ideas were posted, the originality score of the video that was uploaded second would take a hit. I even e-mailed Doritos and told them about my plagiarism concerns and so I can’t believe that “The Casket” still made it. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that they almost are hoping for controversy.

Since I’m sort of at a loss for words right now, how about I turn the discussion over to you? What do you guys think of the finalists? Let us know in the comment section…..

UPDATE: SWEET JUMPING JESUS!!! It turns out that TWO of the entries in the top 6 were created by the same people! They are posted under different names but both “Kids these Days” and “Underdog” are products of a company called 5 Point Productions. That blows my mind!! People are going to flip the F#$% out when they hear about this. I think “Underdog” is great but the other entry is just ok. Doritos couldn’t spread the wealth around a little? In no way do I blame the 5 Point Productions people for this. Good for them for kicking so much ass. They couldn’t find ONE more decent spot among the 4067 that were posted!?

Help us, help you

Posted by Beardy on December 24th, 2009

Santa Beardy says: "Merry Christmas to all the non-jerk asses out there!"

Thanks in large part to the Crash The Superbowl contest, traffic to our little blog has really been on the rise lately. And the good news is, it looks like many readers are sticking around. So if you’re new to the site, thanks for checking us out! And if you haven’t done so already, why not subscribe to our RSS feed?

It’s been really great hearing from our readers (well, our readers who don’t think I’m a “douche pumper”) and if you’re enjoying the site, please feel free to throw your voice into the mix and leave some comments. I especially like hearing from other regular video contest entrants so if you’re feeling friendly, drop me a line, introduce yourself and tell me about your contest track record. I love hearing about success stories so if you want to do some bragging, go for it. We may even want to cover some of your victories here on the blog.

But the thing we are most interested in hearing about are they ways you’ve been screwed by a contest! Have you sat and watched helplessly as some jerk-ass cheated their way into a victory? Know of a contest organizer that’s been ignoring their own rules? Are you starting to suspect that a company is never going to actually pay you the winnings the owe you? Well let us know!

Video contests have become so popular, so fast that the scene is pretty much a lawless, disorganized mess. If you see someone who is obviously voting for their own video over and over in a vote-based contest or if you suspect that a company is screwing filmmakers out of what they’ve eared, what could you do about it? Well now you can tell us. Companies hate negative press, even if it comes from a Podunk little blog like ours. It’s easy to cheat or to mess with filmmakers when you think no one will ever know what you’re doing. But if we call out these people in public, there will forever be a record of their crappy conduct on the web.

Just a few weeks ago a filmmaker e-mailed me and explained that a video contest site had been jerking him around for almost a year. He won a $500 prize from them that they would just never pay up. He e-mailed them over and over and he always got the same response “Sorry, we’ll send the check out ASAP!” He told us that other users of the site were having the same problems. We e-mailed some users of the site and before we could even start writing out story, the company in question contacted us and asked what was going on. Long story short, that dude has his check and an apology about 5 days later.

So please folks, use this site as a tool for keeping jerks in line. Maybe you want to complain about a contest but you’re worried about wrecking your chances of winning. Well if you find yourself in such a circumstance, let us know the details and we will consider lodging a complaint on your behalf. As always, you can contact us at VIDEOCONTESTNEWS@GMAIL.COM.

Again, thanks to everyone out there for checking out the site. Merry Christmas and of course, good luck!

Tyson Hunger Relief contest

Posted by Beardy on December 20th, 2009

Over at Tongal, Tyson is running a video contest designed to promote hunger-relief efforts. Filmmakers were to go out and shoot short documentaries about individuals who were trying to make a difference by collecting food, organizing food drives or working in pantries or shelters. The thing I like best about Tongal is that they have a strict “No Voting” policy on all of their contests. Instead, they often hold “prediction contests” to go along with the main competition. For the hunger relief contest though they are giving several bonus prizes (biggest is $750) to those entries that receive the most views between now and January 6th. The submission period for the competition just closed and the entries can be seen here. Judges will award several prizes but the best of the bunch will get $2,500. But that’s not all! In addition to the prize money, the food bank featured in the winning video will receive a donation of 35,000 POUNDS of food from Tyson!

This was a tough contest to create an entry for so only 12 submissions were recived. And one of them just happened to come from Beardy’s “good friend” Dan. So if you want to show VCN a little support, why not throw him a view by clicking the play button below? Important note: To prevent fraud, Tongal only counts one “view” per IP address. That’s the only way to keep things legit so good for them.

If the video is choppy, try turning off the “HD” button. If the player won’t come up, click here to watch the video on Tongal’s site.

Hartz contestants get a surprise in the mail

Posted by Beardy on December 14th, 2009

Though the Hartz “Crunch n’ Clean” video contest (objective: create a funny video of you brushing your dog’s teeth) had just one grand prize of $1,000, all 24 contestants got a nice surprise from Hartz after the winner was announced. Everyone would be getting a special prize pack just for entering. Grateful contestants recived their packages last week and posted some photos on the contest’s facebook page. Check this out:

That’s a lot of stuff. All too often contest organizers totally forget about all the people who took the time and made the effort to create an entry for their video contest. So it’s great to see a company that realizes that it’d be a good idea to say “thank you” to people who are obviously loyal to their brand. Maybe the prize packages only cost Hartz 50 bucks each to put together but the good will they will receive in return is really valuable. All 24 contestants will tell God only knows how many people about the super cool prize pack they got just for entering. So giving away sweet prizes to the “non-winners” is good for their reputation in the long run. Way to go Hartz!

Profile of a great video contest: Skinit.com

Posted by Beardy on December 3rd, 2009

If you’re a fan of video contests, you know that a lot of them can be sort of frustrating. There are so many ways to screw up a video contest that it’s rare to find one that is run just 100% right. So I decided that maybe we should take a moment every once in a while and profile contests that were done especially well. I thought long and hard about all the contests I’ve entered or read about and one of the best run-contests I’ve ever seen had to be the one that SkinIt.com held earlier this year. I actually ran out of time and didn’t get a chance to shoot an entry for this one but I did pay attention from the sidelines. And I have to say, I was very impressed with the entire operation. SkinIt by the way is a very interesting company. They design stickery-decal like things that you can stick on laptops, ipods, cell phones etc etc. Check out their website to see what I’m talking about. You can even order custom “Skins” and I’ve bought a couple to use in other video contest entries. They’re very handy for dressing up props.

So anyway, what made the Skinit contest so sweet? Well to start, they offered a huge prize for first place; $10,000. That ensured that they would get a mountain of great entries. Then they followed that up by offering large prizes for second and third place (something I always look for since Beardy tends to wind up in 2nd a lot!) They even threw in a $5,000 prize for the best story board idea. Aside from the big prizes though, Skinit did the best thing any company holding a video contest can do; They picked the winners themselves! So Skinit chose to reward quality and not whoever had the willpower to vote for themselves over and over again on youtube.

But that’s enough out of me. Let’s let someone from Skinit tell the rest of the story. Shreya Doshi, one of the organizers of the SkinIt video contest was nice enough to answer a few questions for us and provide a rare look into the other side of video contesting. Next time you see a contest that is being run in a really lame way, you might want to forward the organizers a link to his interview so they can see just what makes a video contest a success.

VCN: Where did the idea come from to hold a video contest to promote Skinit.com? Why did Skinit decide to hold a contest of their own?

SD: Video contests are on the up-and-coming these days – a lot of businesses, small and large, have used them as a way to interact with their customers and build their brand. We wanted to give our customers the chance to contribute to our brand and give them a chance to show us who and what Skinit is to them. We were hoping to open up the creativity gates and see just how much we could do with the Skinit brand, how far we could take a simple product. It’s easy to get stuck in the “same old, same old” when you live and breathe the same concepts day in and day out. Why not let someone fresh take a stab at it? The ideas people came up wit they were definitely refreshing and quite impressive!

VCN: The prize of the contest was very high: $10,000. Plus there was a storyboard competition that had a prize of $5,000. Why did Skinit decided to post such large prizes? I hate to be crude but in the end, did the company get its money’s worth from the contest?

SD: Quality. The prizes were intended to both motivate and reward entrants for quality contributions. We know it isn’t cheap to film and produce a commercial – it involves a lot of resources, time, and effort. It’s important to remember that and make sure we make our contest worth that effort.

VCN: Were you happy with the entries you received?

SD: We definitely received a wide range of entries and I think we ended up with some really professional and fun commercials. We have actually put a couple different ads on the air, not just the winner, and have seen a lot of great response to them! It was really interesting to see the variety of concepts that people came up with and the different ways the Skinit brand was portrayed.

VCN: Filmmakers who enter video contests are usually left in the dark when it comes to how the winners are selected. In the Skinit contest, who picked the winners?

SD: Our judging panel consisted of Paul Buss, CEO of Skinit, Steve Kovsky of San Diego 6 TV (XETV), Pete Weitzner who runs the broadcast journalism program at Chapman University, and Scott Wells, an award-winning commercial director and producer. The goal was to create a panel involving both members of the community and industry specialists that could objectively evaluate the entries.

VCN: How was the judging done? Did the judges all gather together in one place to watch every entry? Or did they watch them on their own? Or maybe the judges only saw a group of finalist videos? (this kind of insight into how a contest is run might seem boring but filmmakers will find it fascinating)

SD: The judges were all given evaluation forms and asked to rate each entry on a scale of 1-6 for each given criteria, including “popularity” based on comments left for each video on the SkinitTV YouTube page. The judges each reviewed the entries individually and then submitted their forms to Skinit. We tallied up the votes and averaged out the scores to determine our top videos. We then had a results meeting with all the judges and revealed the winners. Everyone had a chance to discuss the highs and lows, any surprises, their favorite ads, and their thoughts on the results.

VCN: Which video won the contest? What did everyone at Skinit like best about the entry?

SD: The Grand Prize winner was jaredcicon’s “You Dream It” entry. 1st and 2nd place were actually quite close – within fractions of a point! Made for an interesting discussion during the judges’ results meeting! “You Dream It” had great overall appeal, calling out to all of us who can think of “that crazy Dad.” It not only caught your attention, but held it all the way through the hook. It demonstrated the breadth of our products and the desire of personalization – an important element of the Skinit brand. And of course, it had a memorable punch line with the wife yelling “Jaaaareeedd.” I think that every person I saw watch that ad let out at least a little chuckle when they heard that!

VCN: What were some of the benefits for Skinit for holding a video contest?

SD: Well of course we ended up with some great ads and, like I mentioned earlier, have already aired a few of them – not just “You Dream It.” But beyond that – I think we had our first chance to interact with our customers and get a peek into how they see the Skinit brand. There was a lot of brand exposure for us as well as word of mouth spread and news of the contest got around. We definitely had a lot of fun watching all the entries and seeing the limitless creativity that exists out there. Having been our first contest – we also learned a lot about running contests! A lot of good ideas and entries came from this contest, but we’re hoping to really improve and expand things the next time around…

VCN: Thanks for your time and for setting a great example for other contest-holders!

You can see more Skinit videos and commercials on there youtube channel which is right here: http://www.youtube.com/user/skinittv

UPDATE: Looks like Skinit will be doing another video contest next year. Check out this comment we got from them: “Wait until you see the 2010 contest- AWESOME PRIZE(s)! Way bigger than last year’s!” Sounds sweet. Better start thinking up some ideas now!

Only you can help prevent frontal wedgies!

Posted by Beardy on December 2nd, 2009

Do a google image search for "Camel Toe" and you'll see some nice things and some not so nice things

Do a google image search for "Camel Toe" and this is the only PG rated pic you will find

I don’t even know what to say about this but it’s pretty funny. Video contests seem like an obvious marketing gimmick for tech companies and candy makers but I guess they’ve become so popular that companies of all types are getting in on the action. Case in point, this awesome new video contest for a company called “Camel Ammo.”

http://tongal.com/app/contestDetail.action?id=23

The contest is being run over at the contest site Tongal.com. Click on the link above to read through their innuendo-laced explanation of the competition. Long story short, “Camel Ammo” is a thing a woman can slip into her underwear to prevent her from getting what the website calls, “Frontal Wedgies.” Do you get what I’m saying here? This is a video contest for a product that prevents camel toe.

The top prize is only $1,500 but you can’t put a price on the glory you would receive as the winner of this contest. And no, I am not being sarcastic. If you won, you’d have a great story to tell for months. Imagine being a part of a conversation like this:

SOME DUDE: Hey man, how’ve you been?

YOU: Pretty good! I just won a thousand dollars for a commercial I shot for an anti-camel toe device.

SOME DUDE: Holy Sh&%! That’s hilarious dude. You rule!

Winning this contest will make you just a tiny bit cooler/quirkier/more interesting. And you need all the help you can get. So get out there and use your God given talents to save the world from Frontal Wedgies!

Avoid like the plague: DocSniper.com

Posted by Beardy on November 27th, 2009

NOTE: Our traffic has gone up a good bit thanks to the Crash the Superbowl posts. So if you’re new to the site, thanks for visiting. If you’re looking for a place to promote your Doritos commercial, scroll down to the next post. But if you feel like reading some non-CTSB video contest news, scroll your eyes down to the next paragraph.

There are lot of reasons NOT to enter certain video contests. If the winner is picked by a public vote, you should probably stay out of that fight. If the prize is really small that means the company is cheap and might not even pay up if you win. But the most offensive red flag is a contest that charges you an entry fee. All I can say about that is Fuuuuu*k that noise. Finally, I try to avoid contests that are run by non-U.S. based companies. For one, those contests are usually open to everyone, everywhere which means that your competition is THE ENTIRE FREAKING WORLD. But more importantly, if you have a problem with that contest, what are you going to do? Fly over to their home country and sue them?

So those are what I consider to be deal-breaking red flags. That said, I think I have officially discovered the WORST video contest I have ever seen. Somehow they managed to pull off the rare, 4-red-flagger contest here. It’s “Doc Sniper’s Make Some Noise Video contest” and it immediately comes off as suspicious because the point of the contest is incredibly vague. Check out this description:

That’s it? Make a video with music in it? What the heck is the point of that? Ohhh..I know. The point is that to enter the contest, you have to pay a $10 ENTRY FEE! Pretty much any filmmaker will already have some kind of project that includes music in it. So maybe a ton of them will decide to take a shot, pay the 10 bucks and enter to win the massive $500 jackpot!

This just has “scam” written all over it. The winner of the $500 prize is picked by the “Doc Sniper” community. So think about that; you have to PAY to enter the contest and then if you want the prize, you have to get a bunch of people to register to the site to vote for you. I repeat, Fuuuuuuu*k that noise.

I kind of feel bad for ripping on DocSniper.com because after looking through the site, it seems to be the passion project of some young entrepreneurs hoping to build a new social networking site. I don’t think they actually want to rip people off but based on the business model they are presenting, I think that it’s inevitable that people are going to get screwed. Basically it looks like they are trying to build a pyramid scheme for video contests; if 100 people each pay 10 bucks to enter the contest then 50% of that money goes to the “winner” and 50% goes to Doc Sniper. According to the site, it is their goal to do one contest like this every month. But so far, just 3 people have entered the “music” contest. Are they still going to pay out the 500 bucks if they only take in $30 in entries fees?

The final red flag here is a little weird but there are several videos on the site from “Doc Sniper” himself in which he explains certain aspects of the site. Click right here to visit the site and watch one of these videos. (best example is on the front page in the upper right hand corner) Something is weird about Doc Sniper. It took me a second to catch on but the guy in the video is doing a fake American Accent. I kept poking through the site and in the forum, someone mentions that Doc Sniper is based in Australia. So there you go, the final red flag. And this red flag is so scary it has a picture of an even redder flag on it! The people behind this site are going out of their way to make it appear like they are based in the US (besides the accent, they seem to really drive home the fact that prizes are paid in US dollars.)

Like I said, I feel bad for coming down so hard on this site. Despite the weird fake accent, “Doc Sniper” even seems like a nice guy. So Doc, if you have a google alert set for your name and you see this, I recommend that you drop the entry fee idea ASAP. There are just way, way too many free video contests out there for the concept ever to catch on.