For the third year in a row, Taxslayer.com is running their annual commercial contest. I think I’ve got a decent idea for an entry and was looking forward to entering. But this year, the rules of the taxslayer contest are so strange and complex that I think I might have to have to skip it. It’s just giving me a weird vibe. They’re asking contestants to provide a lot more stuff this year even though they are offering a grand prize that is $10,000 LESS than in previous years. In 2008 and 2009, participants were supposed to submit one, 30 to 60 second commercial and one winner was awarded $25,000. This year, the grand prize has been reduced to $15,000 and participants must submit TWO versions of their commercial; one that’s 15 seconds long and one that’s 30 seconds long.
For the first time though, Taxslayer is also giving away $5,000 for second place. But last year, after the contest ended and the winner was picked, Taxslayer turned two other contestant’s entries into commercials. So those people probably got $5,000 a piece at least. Plus, Taxslayer paid to have all three of last year’s selected videos re-shot by professionals. So while they are giving out more official prizes, they will be spending probably at least 20 grand less on this year’s video contest.
If you entered last year, you already know that the a lot of contestants were not happy about the winner that Taxslayer’s judges picked. Here it is:
2009 Taxslayer Winner. Prize: $25,000
No offense to the maker of the video and friend of VCN “HappyJoel” Moss but that video had zero production values. It was a funny idea and he gave a good performance but everyone who entered the contest assumed that the whole point was to make a real Taxslayer commercial that would air on TV. After all, they aired the 2008 winner on TV exactly as it was submitted. (click here to see that one.) The 2008 winner featured a guy in a real knight’s costume riding around on a real horse but the 2009 video featured a guy in a plastic knight’s costume and a print out of the taxslayer logo on his toy shield.
Taxslayer received tons of really great, professionally made entries. Any number of them were good enough to put right on TV. My own entry didn’t turn out so well so I didn’t expect to win at all. But when they announced that the Press Conference video has won, I was still shocked. Taxslayer explained that they loved HappyJoel’s press conference idea so much that they decided to pick him as the winner and planned to pay a production company to shoot a professional version of the ad. (See the remake that’s now airing on tv, here) But that explanation just caused a lot more frustration. If taxslayer wanted to re-shoot the winning ad, why didn’t they just say so right from the start? I personally spent A LOT of time and a little bit of money shooting my taxslayer entry last year and I did it because I thought that I was supposed to shoot something that was “tv-ready.” That’s what a lot of people thought.
So this year, I was looking forward to the contest because I thought they would be just looking for IDEAS for good commercials they could re-shoot. When I heard that the prize had been reduced by 10 Grand, I assumed that they were for sure just going to be looking for ideas. But then I read the 2010 rules and now I have NO IDEA what those people want from us!
Here’s Taxslayer’s video that outlines the official rules of the contest:
The video says that in addition to winning $15,000 this year’s winners “may be broadcast on national television as part of the 2011 taxslayer.com commercial campaign.”
OK, SO WHAT THE HECK DOES THAT MEAN?? Do they want slick, ready-for-TV commercials or do they just care about cool ideas since they plan to re-shoot them anyway? Since the prize is so much smaller and since they re-shot 3 entries last year we should obviously save our money and make simple “Sample” ads, right? But if that’s the case, why do they want one 15 second version and one 30 second version? And why in the name of God do we have to submit copies of our entries on BETA TAPE? They would only need a BetaSP copy of an ad if they were going to show it on TV.
It seems like Taxslayer is trying to hedge their bets. If a contestant submits an ad that’s slick enough to air on TV, Taxslayer will save a ton of money if they pick it since they won’t have to re-shoot it. But just in case they don’t like any of the high-production-value entries they get, they want to still have the option to re-shoot the winning ads.
And here’s another weird thing about this contest; First place gets you $15,000 and second gets you $5,000. But Taxslayer will use both of those ads in their 2010 commercial campaign. So the second place winner is getting a seriously raw deal! Since both 1st and 2nd place videos will probably appear on TV, Taxslayer should purchase them both for the same price.
But there is no guarantee that Taxslayer will actually show any of this year’s entries (or remakes based on entries) on TV. Nothing (that I saw) in the official rules say anything about the winning ads appearing on TV. That is because Taxslayer doesn’t want to be contractually obligated to air any commercials. They say the winning videos MIGHT air on TV and they only say that in the rules video. They probably will air at least one winner but it’d be nice if they were willing to commit to that in writing.
Oh! I almost forget the icing on the cake. The ultimate winners of the contest will be picked by taxslayer’s judges. But they will pick the winners from a pool of 20 finalists. Those finalists will be determined by view counts and star ratings on youtube! So if you even want to be considered, you better already have a decent number of subscribers and nice, deep social network. Hey wait a second…I run a blog that gets thousands of hits a month! Maybe I should enter. If I appealed to VCN readers for support I should at least be able to get enough views and votes to land in the top 20. Hmmmmm….
Like I said, I’ve been looking forward to entering this year’s Taxslayer contest. But there are so many other HUGE contests running right now I’m not sure I should spend my time and resources on one that is so vague about what they want. I wanted to write taxslayer and ask them to clarify some of their rules but I couldn’t find any contact info on the contest site; just an e-mail address for submissions and the rules say “this email address is for submissions only, we will not respond to questions or other communications.” So I thought maybe I’d just ask my questions into the ether of the internet and see if anyone else had any theories about what exactly taxslayer is looking for.
Unless Taxslayer comes out and clarifies their rules, I think I’m going to pass on this one. Or maybe I’ll got for it…I don’t know. Anybody out there plan on entering?
