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:
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.
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!
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!
Video contests can get pretty ugly. If you're having a problem with a contest let us know! Maybe we can kick a little ass on your behalf. E-mail us at Videocontestnews@gmail.com.
