This spring Pringles ran the biggest contest in the history of Tongal and paid out $45,000 in prize money. Pringles picked 16 winning videos and featured them in a campain they called the “Tournament of Flavors.” Facebook Fans were asked to vote for their favorite flavor-themed shorts until just one submission was left standing. Here’s the video that won the tournament:
That was pretty cool. But that video didn’t actually win he contest. The “tournament” was just kind of for fun. Voters had the chance to win prizes but the filmmakers didn’t win anything in the facebook poll. Pringles picked their winners on Tongal before the tournament was even launched. Ten videos earned $50o, four got $1,000 and then the top five were award prizes ranging from $2,000 to $12,500. The above video came in 3rd and the director (hey, it was the same guy that made this great Hoverboard video and this amazing Duct Tape video) won $3,000. Here’s the video that won the actual contest:
First Place Winner. Prize: $12,500:
Man, I really liked that one. It was very well made and felt so genuine despite the absurd subject matter. Actually, almost all of the 16 winners are pretty well done. Some people really went all out and did incredibly elaborate submissions. You can see all the winning videos right here. But be warned: watching all 16 of these videos will probably make you want to eat some pringles as soon as possible. Damn I wish I had tube of Sour cream and onion right now.
About a year ago, the CEO of Poptent was visiting Chicago and the company set up a dinner where he could meet some site members. I got to go and the CEO was a super nice guy. He went around and asked everybody what they thought about Poptent and he listened to everyone’s suggestions and ideas. My suggestion was that Poptent should team up with a website that licenses music for commercial use. I had been licensing music for my Poptent submissions from a site named PremiumBeat.com and having professional music really made my entries seem a lot slicker. I said maybe PremiumBeat would want to licensee tracks for free or at a discount if Poptent officially partnered up with them. The CEO seemed pretty interested in the idea and I think we even exchanged e-mails about it later.
But I guess I was just ahead of my time! Poptent never teamed up with a music site but yesterday I got a press release announcing a new partnership between Mofilm and the music licensing site AudioSocket. The details of the arrangement are extraordinary; Filmmakers can now license music for use in their Mofilm entries for free. When I first read about this I figured there might be 50 or 100 special tracks that AudioSocket set aside for Mofilm members. But naw….there are more than 33,000 songs available in AudioSocket’s Mofilm Music Storefront. All you have to do is pick your track and add it to your cart. But don’t let words like “storefront” and “checkout” fool you. When you go to check out, you don’t actually have to pay. To peruse AudioSocket’s Mofilm catalog, head here.
And guess what else I just learned….the video contest site Tongal ALSO has partnered up with AudioSocket! So filmmakers can also license music for free for their Tongal entries. Here’s some more info about that:
Tongal has partnered with Audiosocket, a boutique music licensing agency representing more than 1,400 emerging bands, composers and record labels. Audiosocket tracks will be available to Tongal members at no charge solely for their incorporation into Tongal members’ submissions to the Nespresso project. Tongal members are encouraged to browse the Audiosocket catalog, available at http://audiosocket.com. If you are interested in using a track from the Audiosocket catalog, as described above, please email music@tongal.com for account and password info, which will allow for the download of up to three tracks.
I think these partnerships are a HUGE deal. Every contest site should be doing something like this. When you shoot a video on spec or for a contest you feel the sting of every dollar you spend because there’s a very good chance that you’re not going to make that money back. Every time I license a track from PremiumBeat it costs me $30. And that 30 bucks can be a factor in whether or not I actually shoot an entry for a video contest/assignment. I usually try and keep my budgets around $150 so if licensing music is going to push a project over that number, I might just scrap the idea. If filmmakers can gamble less money on their contest entries, they’ll probably wind up shooting more of them. So in the long run, a partnership with a licensing company is going to pay off for site like Mofilm and Tongal in the long run.
Last August I did a post about the amazing video that won Tongal’s “Stuck on Duct Tape” contest. It was entitled “Duct Tron” and it featured some incredible stop motion animation and ridiculously brilliant surprise ending. Well the director who made that ad, David Brashear just won another Tongal contest and once again is work is extremely worthy of a blog post. Here’s his first place entry in Tongal’s BodyArmor contest.
BodyArmor’s First Place winner. Prize: $7,500:
Pretty damn good, huh?? The thing that I love about that video is that it’s almost certainly based on a 20 year old urban legend. Back when I was in grade school, I can remember kids talking about the hover boards that appeared in Back to the Future II. The rumor was that the hoverboards in the movie were real but they were illegal in America because they were too dangerous. Just a few years ago I learned that this hoverboard myth came directly from the film’s director, Robert Zemeckis. According to Michael J. Fox, Zemeckis got tired of explaining how the hoverboard special effects were done in BTTFII so he just started saying that Hoverboards were real. He went so far as to declare in some Back to the Future TV special the hoverboards were a real thing but toy companies couldn’t sell them because parents groups wouldn’t let them. You can read a whole lot more about this weird story here. That page includes a video that Zemeckis produced as “proof” that hoverboards existed. Watch it closely and you’ll see that the director of the Body Armor video probably drew a little inspiration from it.
A dozen (!) other videos won prizes in this contest ranging from $3,000 to $500. A lot of them are also pretty good so you might want to check them out. Actually, you might want to just head over to Tongal so you can take a look at some of the contests they’re currently running. I’m really impressed with how that site has grown in the last year. They keep announcing one huge contest after another and the prize amounts keep going up and up. I just checked and it looks like almost all of their current contests offer top prizes of at least $10,000. So…that’s pretty nice. http://tongal.com/projects
If you’re reading this post, chances are that you’re either a filmmaker or a Russian spammer who is going to try and leave a comment about where people can get a Microsoft Zune for cheap. Either way, you probably have a twitter account that you use for online networking. It took me a long time to get into Twitter but I now hate it a lot less than I used to. Turns out twitter can actually be a helpful tool if you’re into video contests. For example, I’ve learned that if you want to get a response from a contest sponsor, sometimes you should try sending them an @ message on twitter. Most companies monitor their accounts closely and apparently they actively try to make it look like they’re friendly, responsive and easy to deal with. Last summer I spent months and months trying to get one company to pay me a big contest prize they owed me. I sent tons of e-mails and my contact just kept giving me the run around. But then I sent a tweet asking why I hadn’t been paid my prize yet and BAM….the response was immediate. My contact was unhappy that I made my “problem” public but it finally forced them to take care of the issue.
But of course, you can use Twitter for nice things too. I follow a bunch of video contest companies on twitter and you know what? You should too. They tweet out a lot of good info. Case in point: I’m shooting an entry for Mofilm’s Walmart competition this weekend and just yesterday Mofilm tweeted that new video assets had been added to the project. I’ll use one of those clips for sure in my commercial and I wouldn’t have even know they were available if it wasn’t for twitter.
So for the first time ever, I thought I’d take part in the weekly twitter tradition known as #FollowFriday. It’s where users tweet out suggestions of who to follow. So here are my #FollowFriday suggestions:
And of course, if you don’t already follow VCN on Twitter, you should add us too. And because I’m feeling saucy today I’ll even follow back any new followers VCN gets this weekend. Yarg…sentences like that are one of the reasons twitter still annoys me a little.
The phrase "Most Notable" wouldn't fit on the banner so I went with "Best"
Back in December I was planning on doing an article about the “Best Video Contest Entries of 2011.” I did one in both 2010 and 2009 but I never got around to doing the 2011 list. The thing is, 2011 wasn’t really a kick ass year for “consumer generated content.” There just weren’t many big stand outs. So I figured that before we get any deeper into 2012 I’d just do a quick run down of the best video contest entries of the past year. But here’s the thing; these entries aren’t really “the best.” Anyone who has entered even a single video contest knows that the “best” entries don’t always win. So let’s say that these are the most notable contest entries of 2011. Basically this will be a list of the biggest winners of the past year.
In February, the Crash the Super Bowl finalist Pug Attack aired during the Super Bowl and scored the Million Dollar ad meter bonus. But you know, I never really liked Pug Attack since it was just kind of a re-do of the CTSB winning ad, Underdog. One CTSB spot I did like though was the Pepsi Max commercial, Love Hurts. That ad also aired during the game and won a $400,000 ad meter bonus.
The spring of 2011 was a very good time for a Lexington, KY man named Walt Arnett. In March his “Cash America rap” won first place and $10,000 on Cash America’s Cash Rap video contest. In May this video won him 1 of the 6 Mini Coopers that Dairy Queen gave away in their Mini Blizzard Treatment video contest. And then just a week or so later his entry won the $150,000 grand prize in Excedrin’s What’s Your Headache video contest. Interesting note: All three of these contests used facebook votes to determine the winners.
During the summer, Gain detergent awarded a million dollars to this video in their Smell Like a Million Bucks video contest. The winner of that contest was determined by a public vote so of course the winning entry wasn’t that great.
And….that’s it. Those were all the big contests on 2011. It used to be that there were several big video contests a year where the grand prize would be at least $25,000. And as far as I can remember, there weren’t any “make our TV commercial” contests last year either. I guess that sites like Poptent, Tongal and Mofilm have made those kind of big contests unnecessary. But a few contest entries did make it onto TV in 2011. In November, Triaminc started airing a Poptent-made ad entitled 102. And this cool Mofilm-made ad, “Chevy Runs Deep” actually aired during the MLB AllStar game.
Now that I mention it, Mofilm ran a ton of huge video contests in 2011. Each contest was based around a different film festival or arts event and each competition had an over all winner. You can see all of the top Mofilm winners of 2011 in this convenient youtube playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL42175AE837CCDF68
Finally, I think I’ll close out this list by naming VCN’s pick for The Best Video Contest Entry of 2011. This was an easy call. Top honors go to “Duct Tron” which won first place and $4,750 (?) in Tongal’s Stuck on Duct Tape competition. Not only is it an amazing on a technical level, it actually has a hilarious surprise ending. This ad wound up going viral and recived a crazy amount of love from the Internet. Watch it and you will understand why.
If I missed any big 2011 contest entries leave a comment and let me know!
If you’ve noticed all the ads we’ve been running for Tongal.com you already know that they’ve been running some huge contests for some major-league companies lately. One of their bigger clients is ACE Hardware and yesterday Tongal announced the winner of ACE’s “Customer Service Video Project.” The goal in this contest was to shoot a video about how helpful ACE employees can be. Here’s the spot that came out on top:
First Place Winner. Prize: $10,000:
Pretty good huh? Looks really professional too. I was keeping an eye on this contest because I actually entered this one myself. I collaborated with my long-distance contest buddy HappyJoel Levinson; he created a song and I shot and edited a video for it. We did manage to win a prize; $500. But this was one of those times when I kind of knew I had missed the mark. I think the video was cute but it was lacking pizazz. You can’t tell from the video but the outside stuff was shot in the freezing rain. But at least the shoot was a good excuse to try out my new camera gear. I just bought an HVX200 last month and I’m really happy with it. Now that I’m using a real video camera again I realize just how inhibiting DSLRs can be. With the HVX I don’t need to worry about ISO numbers or syncing up audio in post or stuff going out of focus if I move the camera a foot closer to the subject. I’m excited to shoot a lot more entries this year now that I don’t have to worry so much about the tech side of things. Basically I’ll be able to just point and shoot. Anywho, if you’d like to see the entry Joel and I did (or the rest of the winning spots) head here: http://tongal.com/project/aceservice
Sweet jumping Jesus!! I just randomly checked a random video contest website (Tongal) and randomly picked a random, expired contest (Stuck on Duct Tape) and figured I’d check out the video that came in first. Turns out the ad that won is like one of the greatest freaking video contest entries of all freaking time! It’s easily the best contest video I’ve seen all year. It was shot by a filmmaker named David Brashear and I actually recognize his name. Last year he won a quiznos assignment sponsored by poptent and his commercial was so good the sponsor decided to air it on TV. (Click here to view David’s Quizno’s spot.) Tongal is a little different from most video contest-hosting sites because they run their contests in phases. In the first phase, people submit ideas and the sponsor picks their favorites. Then in the second phase, filmmakers go out and shoot the winning ideas. Technically you can come up with a whole new concept but most people choose to play it safe and shoot the pre-approved ideas. But in this case, the filmmaker submitted something totally out of left field. Not only is it visually amazing, it has a shocking twist ending. Watch and be amazed:
First Place Winner. Prize: $4,750:
CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT S&*% OR WHAT? All I can say is that $4,750 is NOT enough for a video like that! Couldn’t they at least round the prize up to an even $5K? The ad is simply amazing but I do have one criticism. The actress cast to play the wife of the “guy” is way too hot! The producer should have tried to cast someone that was at least slightly plausible. Or hey, maybe she’s not supposed to be the “guy’s” wife. Maybe she’s like his therapist or live in caretaker or something. He does kind of treat her like he’s a stubborn mental patient and she’s his frustrated nurse.
To see all the winning Duct Tape videos, head here. But be warned, after seeing that Tron video everything else is going to be a let down: http://tongal.com/project/ducktape
Man, did Binaca get lucky on this one. They just ran a really bizarre video contest called “Yes We Can Stop Bad Breath” on Tongal. They offered a tiny cash prize but asked for something that only a few people in the world could give them. They wanted “screen tests” from guys who look and sound like President Obama. Against all odds, they wound up with a freaking fantastic winner even though it looks like they only got FIVE entries!
The premise of the contest is hard to describe so I’ll just cut and paste from the brief:
It’s no secret that our Commander-In-Chief is a smoker, but recently it appears that he’s been keeping it under wraps. His secret weapon? Binaca breath drops. Create a series of 30-second viral videos that feature President Obama smoking cigarettes and covering it up with Binaca Breath Drops.
Submit a video of your best Obama impersonation. The best impersonator will receive $1,000 cash plus travel to Los Angeles / accommodations and star in five viral videos produced by previous Binaca winners, Team Tiger Awesome.
Don’t be confused; this contest wasn’t about creating 30 second videos. It was about finding an Obama impersonator for the videos. Since the prize was only $1,000 and a trip to LA, this contest seemed like it was doomed to fail. But like I said, Binaca got incredibly lucky. Check out the winning “screen test:”
Winner. Prize: $1,000 and a trip to LA:
That dude is for sure the best Obama impersonator a thousand bucks can buy!! And to get his $1,000 he’s got to star in FIVE 30 second videos?? If Binaca had just hired an actor for this they would have had to pay him a whole lot more than a thousand bucks.
But you want to know the weirdest thing about this contest? President Obama doesn’t smoke any more! The first Lady announced months ago that her husband hasn’t had a cigarette in a year. And that news was public before this contest was announced. So it’s kind of offensive to create a series of videos that depict the president as a smoker when he isn’t one any more. (Imagine the backlash if Bud Light had depicted recovering alcoholic George W. Bush drinking beer in the white house ) Tongal also ran a concept phase of this contest where users could suggest ideas for some of the videos. This suggestion won $200:
Before delivering a speech at a school, Obama craves a cigarette. After smoking in the school bathroom, he uses the drops to hide his guilty pleasure. The teachers outside the bathroom are thrown off by his fresh breath and blame a nearby student.
And this idea won $100:
President Obama off stage a cigarette in one hand and 3×5 cards in the other. Rehearsing his lines; In between drags saying “Yes We Can” in every way imaginable. Happy, Somber, like a ballerina, Serious…Pops in a Binaca breath drop & goes on.
Now that every one knows Obama doesn’t smoke any more, aren’t these videos going to come off as dishonest and disrespectful? I don’t know…I just think that the whole idea should have been scrapped before the contest even launched.
