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Archive for August, 2010

Two Poptent-made Quiznos ads start airing

Posted by Dan L. on August 31st, 2010

There are currently three commercials airing on TV promoting Quizno’s “5 4 3″ deal and in classic Quizno’s style, they feature crazy animation and weird animals singing about tasty sandwiches. The first ad you’ve probably seen; it features 3 kittens singing to the tune of Three Blind Mice. () The other two ads you might not have seen yet since they just started airing. Amazingly, these two new Quizno’s ads were created for an assignment on poptent.net. The commercials are so slick and so well made that 99.999% of the people who see them on TV would never even guess that they were made on spec by freelancers. I actually think both commercials are better than the one Quiznos themselves produced. Here they are:

Purchased by Quiznos. Price: $7,500

Purchased by Quznos. Price: $7,500

Amazing stuff. Now let me tell you, Quiznos got one hell of a deal here. I’m going to guess that $7,500 is just a fraction of what it cost to create the original singing kittens ad. That’s great for Quiznos but kind of not so great for filmmakers. $7,500 is a lot of money but it’s certainly the lowest payday I’ve ever seen for a in this type of situation. Normally in video contests or poptent-style open assignments if the sponsor intends to use the selected video on TV the price tag is somewhere between $10,000 and $25,000. Just off the top of my head Doritos, Taxslayer and butterfinger all paid $25K for video contest entries that made it to air. But like I said, $7,500 is still a big pay day and for an up-and-coming professional, the real prize is getting your work on national TV. Still, I hope Quiznos sends those guys a couple free gift cards. Actually, forget the gift cards. The guys who made those two ads should be allowed to walk into any quiznos and demand free sandwiches. If I were them, I’d go in and be all like “Don’t you people know who I am!? I’m the guy that made that Quiznos commercial where that heavy metal cat screams about sandwich deals motherF$%#*er! So give me a free Tasty Torpedo before I tear this place apart!!”

A little inspiration for the godaddy contest

Posted by Dan L. on August 14th, 2010

As we explained in our last post, Godaddy.com is sponsoring a ginormous new commercial contest. Actually, it’s more than just a “commercial” contest since contestants are supposed to submit 2 videos; a 30 second commercial and a 60-90 second “internet only” continuation of the story.

I’ve explained the contest to a few friends and they’ve all seemed kind of baffled by the amount of work that would be involved in entering. But it’s less complicated than it sounds, I think. If you’re considering entering, you might want to head to godaddy.com to see a bunch of examples of the kind of “TV” and “Internet Only” ads Godaddy has done in the past. Like this pair of videos:

That first one is the 30 second version of a commercial called “Speeding” that aired on TV. It ends with a graphic that says “see what happens next at godaddy.com.” The commercial contestants are supposed to do is also supposed to end with a similar graphic. The second video is the extended, Internet-only version of “Speeding.” It’s 2 minutes long and the first 30 seconds are the same as the 30 second commercial (minus the “see more now at godaddy.com tag.)

To see more of these types of official godaddy commercials, CLICK HERE and go to the “Video Archives.”

Godaddy launches biggest video contest ever (again!)

Posted by Dan L. on August 8th, 2010

If video contests have an off-season, I guess it would be the summer time. There hasn’t been much news for me to report so for the last few months contests and this website have taken a back seat to other projects. For example…if you look to the right of the screen you’ll see an ad for the documentary I directed. It finally just got released on DVD so if you feel like seeing a crazy movie about self-professed nerds rapping about comic books and video games, check it out.

Anyways like I said, my focus has been elsewhere lately so a few days ago a reader had to clue me it to an especially big piece of news that I had somehow managed to totally miss. Godaddy is holding ANOTHER video contest and it’s already up and running! That’s kind of shocking when you consider that their first video contest ever just ended about 2 ½ months ago. (winners were announced on May 31st) Well Godaddy must have been really pleased with the results of their consumer-generated experiment because not only are they running a “summer” installment of the contest it will officially be the BIGGEST video contest in history with a guaranteed payout of $600,000 in prizes! First place gets you $250,000, second gets 150,000 and third place is good for 75,000. And if that wasn’t enough, FIVE runners-up will receive $25,000 each. That is seriously amazing. Plus, Godaddy won’t commit to airing the winning ads on TV but they imply on the contest website that they probably will do just that.

But extraordinary prizes require and extraordinary effort. Last time, all you needed to do was submit a 30 second commercial for the contest. This time, here’s what you need to do to enter:

Create a 30 second commercial for godaddy.com. The last 5 seconds of the ad though must be a video supplied by godaddy that says “See more now at Godaddy.com.”
Create a 60-90 second follow-up to your commercial (featuring the same characters) that will be featured on Godaddy.com
This one is optional: If you are really feeling ambitious you can attempt to make THREE commercials and THREE web-only shorts. If you win, and if godaddy wants to use your “campaign” you will receive an additional $100,000.

Even if you skip the “campaign” stuff you’re looking at creating about TWO MINUTES of content with zero guarantee it will pay off. Wow. That is a huge gamble and I don’t think a ton of filmmakers have the nerve to try and pull it off.

Once you get past the basics, the requirements get even more interesting. Check out this instructional video godaddy posted about entering the contest. I can’t embed it so click the image to watch it on the godaddy site.

If you didn’t watch the video and just continued reading, let me recap what that hot blonde girl had to say. Right off the bat, godaddy wants to make it clear that this contest is for “aspiring or actual TV commercial makers.” Later in the video, they say something that I have never, ever seen a video contest sponsor say before. They explain that your video must be TV quality and if you are planning on shooting your ad with your cell phone or your dad’s old camera, you need to come up with a new game plan.

In most contests (Crash the Superbowl being the most obvious example) tons of people enter who have no chance in hell of winning because they don’t understand that the sponsor will only pick winners that look like real TV commercials. So godaddy seems to be intentionally discouraging novices from entering. I think that’s very big of them. Most contest sponsors are happy to let people waste time and money making entries that could never win because of technical reasons. I guess they do this because later they can boast about how many entries they got.

Last time, Godaddy received a little more than 500 submissions for their commercial contest. I’m really interested to see how many they get this time around. I’m thinking maybe 100? But of that 100, most of them will be pretty damn good. So the big question remains: Should you enter? It’s a tough call. To help you decide, try taking this little questionnaire:

1. Do you have access to an HD camera that can shot TV-quality video?
2. Are you willing to spend at least a few hundred dollars shooting your submission?
3. Do you have the talent, time and energy to create 2 minutes of video content between now and September 30th.
4. Do have access to pro-level lighting and audio gear?
5. Do you know people who can use pro-level lighting and audio gear?
6. Do you have a really, really, REALLY good idea for an ad?
7. Are you crazy?

If you answered NO to any of the above questions you should probably sit this one out. Me, I think I’m going to go for it. I have what I think is a very good idea and in fact, I might even go for the “campaign.” If I do though, it’ll probably be the only video contest entry I’ll be working on for the next 2 months. In fact, if I do godaddy I’ll probably have to skip the Crash the Superbowl contest.

Speaking of…the timing of this contest and the prizes offered really make it seem like Godaddy has decided to make their contest THE user-generated video contest of the year. Doritos usually announces the start of the Crash the Superbowl contest in September so Godddy has managed to beat them to the punch. And last year, Doritos gave each finalist $25,000. Isn’t that money going to look like chump change now that Godaddy has raised the states so astronomically high?

Oh, one more important thing to note. ALL winners in the Godaddy contests will be picked by judges. Last time, Goddy let the “community” pick some of the winners and of course, most of the videos that won the “popular vote” weren’t great. You’ll be able to rate videos on the contest site but votes and ratings have zero effect on the final outcome. Nice.

For all the details about the contest, click here: http://videos.godaddy.com/godaddy-commercial-contest.aspx

2010 Toyota 4Runner Winner

Posted by Dan L. on August 1st, 2010

Toyota Canada recently announced the winner of their Hosers-Only (my term, not theirs) Toyota 4Runner contest. Contestants were supposed to make a video explaining why they loved 4Runners…or something. It wasn’t really clear. The thing that caught my eye about this contest is the way Toyota picked their 10 finalists. 9 finalists were picked by judges and 1 was picked by a public, online vote. That type of finalist selection is a great way for a sponsor to have their cake and eat it too. Anywho, here’s the video that wound up winning the top prize.

First Place. Prize: A 2010 Toyota 4Runner