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:
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!
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Wait until you see the 2010 contest- AWESOME PRIZE(s)! Way bigger than last year’s!
good article.
The only thing I didn’t like about their judging method is that they took into consideration the comments left on YouTube. Not good! So if my video sucks, but if i have hundreds of close friends who leave great comments about how awesome it is maybe Ill wind up in the finals.
But I guess the judges will realize that? right??
Hey Beardy,
I only just now saw this blog post. Wow, I wish I saw it earlier. I was going to write a blog post on pretty much the same content, but couldn’t figure out how to do it without sounding obnoxious. After all, of course I am going to agree with the administration of a contest that chose me as it’s winner. I didn’t want my readers to gag, so in the end I just couldn’t post a blog on the VCK. But you hit a lot of the nails on the head. I think that, next to Doritos, it is one of the best run contests out there.
The only thing I am not in agreement with you on, is the prize amount. Let me explain: If you are going to spend the proper amount of time, on writing, pre-production, shooting and post production… for me, a solid national quality commercial takes a good 3 weeks (Minimally) to pull off. After tangible expenses, opportunity costs, and favors that inevitably have to be re-paid, I made about $6,000.00 after taxes. Extrapolated out, this rate of pay is on par with a plumber or tradesman (IF I was able to win EVERY contest I entered). I think we send the wrong message to brands if we tell them that they are providing ‘overly generous’ prize awards at this price/sell point.
I am not suggesting that these brands start offering $300,000.00+ (the industry average for national quality production), but 10 cents on the dollar would be something to aspire to. This potential payday would also give more of a green light on production spending costs which ultimately benefits the brand in the long run. It is not ‘luck’, why Doritos get’s boatloads of super high octane spots.
For the freelance creative, I think the danger of being happy with these smaller creative sales points is that one day the freelance creative genre may be relegated to the same financial status as major market newspaper press photographers. I knew one who would regularly lament how wonderful it was to see his name in a credit line on a front page of a major Newspaper, but also admitted he could barely keep the lights on in his apartment. We creatives are going to start seeing national spots bought and sold for $2,000.00 and $3,000.00 unless as a united body we start to put a value on our intellectual property. It is dangerous to send the signal that we creatives are happy with the minimum wage for our wares.
So yeah, by far, Skinit.com has it going on, relative to other brands, but I def. like the hint they gave of a bigger payday next year.
Jared Cicon (AKA the VCK)
Jared,
Thanks for the comment. I think you’re very right about prize amounts. Things seem to be moving very quickly in the new “consumer-created content” field. This year, $10K was a great prize but if next year a company is looking for a spot that they can actually air on tv, $15K to 25K seems like a good place to start. And really, 50K for a national spot seems like an amazing deal considering how much “real” commercials cost to produce. Along with a larger prize, I really think it’d be great if Skinit promised to air the winning spot like Taxslayer did in 2008. Thanks to doritos and even the success of Amazon’s current Kindle commercial (their big holiday ad for 09 came from a video contest) I think 2010 is going to be a huge year for freelance creatives.
Hey Beardy,
Just a heads up. Skinit.com has been running the spot for several months now. In fact I have had more calls from different places (Connecticut, The Bahamas, Oregon, Utah, etc. etc.) than any other national I have ever produced. They did a heavy media buy on ESPN. It plays about once per hour on that cable network. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the sell-throughs indicate a bump in sales. I would love to be able to pitch them another spot.
Jared aka VCK
p.s. I put a link to your blog on the VCK. I hope you don’t mind that I made some Robin Hood references to yourself and I. I will probably keep it there until I can get some advertisers to pay me for some space, but in the meantime while I am a nobody I am putting some links to my contacts there. Once I make the big time of course I won’t even remember your site. {;-])
Jared
Hey Beardy,
There are actually a ‘LOT’ of commercials resulting from contests current taking up market space on TV. I wish I could name more than Doritos, Amazon, Skinit, and TaxSlayer. BTW, TaxSlayer will be starting here again with Happy Joel’s spot in about a week.
Jared