Finalists | Video Contest News

Posts Tagged ‘finalists’

Ultimate Job in Ireland winners

Posted by Beardy on May 22nd, 2010

A long overdue congratulations goes out to VCN reader Tim Oliphant and his wife for making it to the finals in the Ultimate Job in Ireland video contest. Back in February, Tim won first place in the Louisiana Hot Sauce video contest with an especially good entry, so he seems to be on quite a roll. Here’s the official description of the “Ultimate Job” contest:

“To celebrate the launch of Ireland’s most exciting destination wedding and honeymoon website, The Irish Times have teamed up with Runaway Bride and Groom to find the right candidate to do 6 months of research… researching the most romantic and ultimate wedding and honeymoon venues around the world – with their partner.

They are looking for the right person (and their partner) to research and test out the most romantic and ultimate wedding and honeymoon destinations all over the world and then report back with their verdict (on the place, not the partner!) to their boss, 4,000 miles away.”

For making it the finals, Tim and his wife got to travel to Ireland to compete against 9 other couple in a series of challenges to determine the winners of the big “job.” Another couple wound up winning the grand prize but a free trip for 2 to Ireland is a pretty sweet consolation prize. Here’s the video that got Tim and his wife to the finals:

Ultimate Job in Ireland Finalist. Prize: Trip to Ireland.

And here are the folks who won the whole thing. Remember, the tasks they had to perform in Ireland are what won them the grand prize. This video is just what got them into the top ten.

Ultimate Job in Ireland Winners. Prize: 6 months of travel and 20,000 Euros.

Wow, I just read that they shot that with a camera phone! They just posted their first official video blog and it looks like the sponsors gave them an actual video camera to work with from here on out.

Godaddy Finalists Announced

Posted by Beardy on May 8th, 2010

I didn’t realize that Godaddy was going to let the public know who made the finals of their ginormous commercial contest but I checked the website today and they had 10 “Finalists” listed. They also announced that the winner and a few of the runners-up will make their debut during the Indy 500 on May 30th. Man, godaddy is smart. That seems like the perfect event for this kind of unveiling. Plus that’s a long friggin’ race so they’ll probably air a lot of the finalists.

Every one of the videos that made the top 10 are pretty solid. And there’s a nice variety to the finalists. Some are “sexy” and some are goofy but they’re all funny. There’s only one kind of amateurish video (the one about the super powers godaddy can give you and it made me chuckle) but there rest of the videos are 100% pro all the way. They are as slick as can be. Hey, $175,000 is at stake so it’s only fitting that the commercials look professional. But all the folks who shot entries in their basements with their flip cameras will probably be mad that they only picked slick productions.

Like I said, I enjoyed all the finalists videos. They’re all funny but none of them really hit it out of the park. So I was impressed but not blown away. But people really outdid themselves and it looks like some people spent a lot of cash on their productions. You can see all 10 finalists at http://videos.godaddy.com/super-bowl-video-contest but here are my 2 favorites:

The “Get online rap” is pretty good too but I can’t find it on youtube. The public voting period is also over now and you can see which videos won the “community” prizes for having the highest scores. Remember, those prizes are stuff like laptops and cameras. Here’s the video that wound up being the hightest rated:

Christ, what an asshole. As you can guess, the annoying jerk in that video is a youtube celebrity who got his legion of tween followers to vote for him. I’m sure the folks at Godaddy are quite relived that they didn’t let “the public” pick their $100,000 winner.

5/9/2010 UPDATE: An astute commenter pointed out that the only non-slick finalist I mentioned has already been named the winner of the OTHER godaddy commercial contest. If you like contests enough to actually read this website, you probably already know that Godaddy ran two video contests concurrently. There was the big $175,000 contest and then there was an alternative contest run on the contest site zooppa. The prize in that one was only $3,000. For some reason, people in other countries and certain states (NY and FL I think) weren’t legally eligible to enter the big contest. So that everyone could have a chance to enter, the second contest was created. Some sneaky filmmakers submitted their commercials to both. That seems like bad form to me but I guess it worked for the guy who made the “superpowers” ad. It’s as simple as can be but it’s well written and well perfromed. Check it out:

Winner, Godaddy’s ZOOPPA contest. Prize: $3,000

Fidelity’s “Be the Green Line” finalists

Posted by Beardy on March 29th, 2010

On Friday, Fidelity Investments announced the 5 finalists in their “Be the Green Line” video contest. The idea for this one was quite unique; people were supposed to pretend to be an actual green line and then give someone advice or guidance. It’s a play on Fidelity’s current ad campaign where financial advisers help investors plan out their future via a “Green Line” to their goals.

Anyways, guess what? Your pal Beardy is one of the 5 finalists and I could use some help. If you have a youtube account, I’d greatly appreciate it if you could view my entry and then rate it 5 stars (or give it a “like” if you’re using youtube’s new layout) Instead of playing the green line myself, I created an odd, muppet-style green line puppet that ran around giving tips to random strangers. Here’s my video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD1IGGFKZwU

Now if you’re a regular reader of VCN you’ll know that I usually advise against entering contests that involve online voting. But the Fidelity contest is a very rare example of how to incorporate voting into a contest without rewarding cheaters. According to the “Be the Green Line” rules, Fidelity could have picked as many as 10 finalists and then after a public voting period, judges would pick the winner out of the 5 videos with the highest scores. But Fidelity saved all of us finalists a ton of grief by only picking 5 videos for this round! So there won’t be a big ugly fight to make it to the top 5. And mercifully, the voting period is only a week long which is just right if you ask me.

The rules say that the judges may or may not take youtube ratings into account when picking their winner. So I feel compelled to do a little campaigning. Plus, it looks like one or more contestants are having their friends down-vote my video! So now I have to try and get my score up as a matter of principle.

If you are so inclined, you can check out all 5 finalist videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/BeTheGreenLine

Thanks in advance for any 5-star ratings you wish to bestow up on my puppet opus!

Adweek says: The Crash the Superbowl finalists suck

Posted by Beardy on January 24th, 2010

I don’t know if this article appeared in the print addition of Adweek magazine or just on the website. But I do know the author of the piece, Barbara Lippert pretty much thinks Doritos’ Crash the superbowl finalists and most User-generated content, suck hard. Here’s a taste of the article:

“I’ve just looked at the six finalists in Doritos’ “Crash the Super Bowl” contest, and before going any further, I’d like to ask: Do I really have to pick one? Chosen from more than 4,000 entries by Doritos marketing people and agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, among others, these six really are that bad. Basically, the choices boil down to how you like your main character — smacked, zapped, bloodied or strangled. Oh, there’s also a fat slob who’s voluntarily been buried alive in a coffin full of Doritos. Hey, even Homer Simpson didn’t think of that one!” (lol, but I did!- Beardy)

“There’s no use bemoaning the uniformity of lame ideas here. Cheap production budgets produce cheap laughs. (And obviously, particularly since the advent of YouTube, the American public has been fed a steady diet of violent and dumb video jokes over the years.) The end product, the Super Bowl spots, are the Oreos atop the cake, the icing on the salty snack.”

Well shit lady, tell us what you really think! Obviously, a lot of people think the Crash the Superbowl finalists this year are kinda on the lame side. But the author of the adweek article uses the crappiness of some of the Doritos videos as proof that we little guys can never match the brilliant work that Madison avenue cranks out. She says….

“Here, in a nutshell, is why we need real newspapers, not just bloggers, and real ad agencies, not just amateurs trying it at home. Depth. If Apple’s “1984″ were made by these people, you could forget about allusions to a famous book (what?) or political philosophy (huh?). The sledgehammer would hit Big Brother in the balls.”

If Apple were to put up 5 million in prizes for “deep” Superbowl commercials you know what would happen? They’d get 4,000 entries and I bet at least 6 of them would be hella’ deep. But we’re talking about a contest held by a chip company, aren’t we? There’s not a lot of room for depth now is there. Just think, have you ever seen a “professionally” made Doritos commercial that was deep? Plus, comparing a legendary, 26 year old, Superbowl commercial with 6 user-generated ads from 2010 is a little unfair. If the author wanted her comparison to be more appropriate, she would compare this batch of finalist entries to commercials that ran during the most recent Superbowl. Like maybe that Cheetos ad where the girl gets pigeons to attack (and presumably poop on) a loudmouth on a cell phone. Or maybe any Godaddy.com ad ever that features a girl stopping just short of getting naked and then implying you can see the uncensored version of the ad on the Godaddy website. Yep….pure class. We amateurs should be ashamed of ourselves.

At least the author is willing to admit that last year’s winner, Free Doritos wasn’t as terrible as this year’s finalists. She says “Compared to this year’s crop, that ad was positively Bergman-esque.” Then she goes on to bash specific finalists:

“Most of the credit for this year’s ideas should go to Mo, Larry, Curley & Associates. There’s yet another entry involving a vending machine, and one with a dog who puts his no-bark collar on a cruel human. The faux corpse munching on chips in his coffin is an insult to people who value a Christian funeral, never mind an affront to sexy, non-slobby vampires everywhere.”

You really should check out the whole article. It’s brimming with disdain for “user-generated content.” Here it is: CHIPS OFF THE OLD BLOCK.

The comments from people that obviously make their living creating commercials are pretty harsh too. Last week, I encouraged VCN readers to support and vote for the Crash the Superbowl finalist that I though had the best chance of scoring in the Top 3 in the ad meter. (Underdog) It’s not so much that I am worried how Doritos will look if they have to air 3, kinda lame ads, but I’m worried that we, the amateurs, the content-creating users, the freelances and the little guys will look like we weren’t able to step up and create top notch material even when 5 million bucks is on the line.

Did Doritos do a great job picking their 6 finalists this year? No. Will marketing people watch the 3 CTSB commercials that air during the superbowl and assume that Doritos picked bad ads? No. They will simply assume that the 3 ads that air are the best of the best. They must be, they made it to the Superbowl, didn’t they?

And that’s what frustrates me. The more successful the Crash the Superbowl campaign is, the more imitation contests will spring up this year. Most of us will never win a big-money contest like CTSB, be we sure as heck have a good chance at winning smaller contests. And the reason there are so many of those smaller contests happening these days is because Doritos showed that when given a chance, we the viewers could deliver awesome content.

But what is Doritos showing the world we can do this year? If YOU weren’t impressed by this year’s crop of CTSB finalists, imagine how people in the ad industry (the ones who might want to do similar contests of their own someday) will react to the selected ads. Oh…I guess you don’t have to imagine. Just read the Adweek article.

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!

Juding the Crash the Superbowl Judges

Posted by Beardy on January 7th, 2010

Should that have been you up there?

First of all, if you’re new to the site, welcome! We’ve been getting hundreds of new readers a day thanks to the Crash the Superbowl contest. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be covering the contest closely but we’ll also be doing our regular thing which is covering video contests of all sizes. If this year’s Crash the Superbowl contest was your first video contest experience I recommend that it not be your last. You may not have made it to the finals, but there are plenty of other big prizes out there waiting to be won. I personally have never won a big money prize but in the last two years I’ve won a total of $30,000 in smaller contests. And there are plenty of other folks on the web who have won a who lot more than that. So I hope you all enjoy both our Dortios and non-Doritos related posts and share your own opinions in the comments sections. If you’d like to be know whenever we put up a new post, just click the yellow RSS button to the right to subscribe to the blog.

Doritos announced their “Top 6” on Monday night and now that I’ve had a some time to let the finalists sink in, I’ve warmed up to them. All of them are at least decent. Unlike a lot of unhappy folks, I wouldn’t classify any of them as “sucking.” Are all of them good enough for the superbowl? Maybe not. We’re there better entries that got overlooked? Yes. I think the Doritos judges were just maybe 2 or 3 choices away from having a really awesome Top 6.

But not everyone thinks so. In fact, based on the e-mails and comments I’ve been getting and from what I’ve read on the Crash the Superbowl forum, a lot of you really, really, REALLY hate the choices Doritos made. I’ve read lots of theories. Including:

1. The judges intentionally picked bad finalists to ensure the company would not have to pay out 5 million bucks.
2. One finalist entry was picked solely for politically correct reasons.
3. The USAtoday article that revealed “Casket” as a finalist gave them an unfair advantage
4. The contest was “rigged” in some way for some reason
5. Doritos picked 2 videos from the makers of the commercial that won the first CTSB competition in 2007 because they know them and like them.

One disgruntled contestant went so far as to create a facebook group in protest of the judges decisions:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&ref=search&gid=234804648719

Personally, I won’t be joining that particular group. I think that 3 of Doritos choices are funny and good enough for the game. And three good ones are all you need. I even think one of them has a shot at the top spot on the USAtoday ad meter. I’ll be listing my three personal choices as well as my three predictions in the next few days. In the meantime, why don’t you guys let us know what you think in the comments section? Did the judges blow it or did they nail it? What ads do you think were robbed of a finalist spot? Which commercials do you think suck and why? Which one will you be voting for?

And I am looking for an answer for a specific question. I didn’t enter or even pay attention really to the CTSB contest last year. After the last year’s Top 5 were announced, what was the reaction? Did people instantly love “Snowglobe?’ Were people claiming the contest was rigged or that the judges picked 6 awful entries? If you followed the contest last year and can fill me in on what the consensus was, lemme know in a comment.

Help Beardy find the best of the CTSB entries!

Posted by Beardy on November 23rd, 2009

Beardy is a dreamer of big dreams. And Beardy’s latest big dream was to watch all 4047 entries in this year’s crash the superbowl contest and list his predictions for which commercials would make it to the finals. But alas, this was a pipe dream. For if one were to actually sit down and watch every, single entry that was submitted to the Doritos contest this year they’d be stuck in front of a computer for almost three full days. Beardy still wants to compile a list of predictions, but he could use some help.

So, have you seen a spot that you thought was especially awesome? Did you see one that you know is destined to make it to the finals? Or did you create an amazing commercial that you think should be recognized? Or did you make a spot was just OK but you feel like doing some shameless self promotion? If you answered in the affirmative to any of these questions, let us know. Send us a link to your favorite CTSB entries at videocontestnews@gmail.com or just leave it in a comment. In the next few days, I’ll edit this post and insert links to some of the more interesting suggestions I’ve received.

Crash the Superbowl: Winners of the past

Posted by Beardy on November 7th, 2009

I haven’t been spending much time working on this blog because Beardy has been hard at work making his own entry for the Doritos Crash the Superbowl contest. The thing is pretty much done I think so hopefully I’ll be able to upload it this weekend.

With just 2 days to go before the deadline, more than 1,000 entries have been submitted and some really high quality entries have been coming in. The production values have gone through the roof in the last week but that was expected. I’ve seen a good number of entries that, if they were shot for a different video contest, would win easily. But…I only seen one, really, REALLY great entry so far and I suspect that it won’t even make the finals. If I had to pick 6 videos that were going to make it to the finals, I bet I’d get 4 of them wrong.

As I said, the videos are getting better but I think most people are missing the true point of the contest: To get a top spot on the USA Today ad meter. That means a perfect video would appeal to as many people as possible. But I’ve been seeing tons of good videos that would turn off a large portion of the audience. Dudes might love watching chip crumbs fall down the cleavage of a beautiful woman, but are women going to score that high on the ad meter? And sure, some people might thing liking doritos dust off of a sleeping dog is ingenious but that will just completely gross out some people. The thing that amazes me the most though is the amount of violence against women I’ve been seeing in the videos. Ok, a shot of one girl tackling another if one thing but I have seen many good videos ruined by shots of women getting hit, tackled, and even punched in the face in realistic ways by MEN. Doritos might be looking for edgy spots but there are some lines that just shouldn’t be crossed.

This might be a little late to help anyone who plans to enter the contest this year but let’s take a look back at the kind of videos Dortitios DOES like. Here are ALL the finalists from the two previous years that Dortios held the Crash the Superbowl commercial contest.

2007 Finalists