A few weeks back I posted my entry for the “” video contest and the results are in; I didn’t win.  Well, I didn’t win the big prize of a trip to Costa Rica to visit DD’s coffee plantations.  But I did win a runner up prize of a year’s supply of free coffee (in the form of a few pounds sent to me every month during 2011.)  My entry only took me a few hours to shoot and edit so that’s a pretty satisfying return on my investment.  But Dunkin’ Donuts sure had a funny way of letting me know I had won the runner up prize; they called me.  If you’ve won a few video contests you’ll know that getting a congratulatory phone call from the sponsor is rare.  And you almost never get a call unless you’re the contest’s big winner.  So when I picked up my phone and heard, “Hi! This is —- from Dunkin’ Donuts, how are you!?” for about 1 second I thought, “I’m going to Costa Rica!!”  But the second passed and I remembered there were some runner-up prizes up for grabs and somehow I knew that’s what the call was about.   I knew because I had seen one really great entry that I was sure was going to win.  Here it is:

That entry’s cute and funny and shows the lengths the two stars would go to get some DD coffee.  And since there were two people in the entry and the grand prize was a trip for two to Costa Rica, I thought they’d be the perfect choice.  But they didn’t win either!  (They did also win free coffee though.)  Here’s the winning entry:

Grand Prize Winner.  Prize: Trip for 2 to Costa Rica:

I think it’s ok and there are some nice props, costumes and gags in there.  But I’ll never understand why so many videos that feature um…not so great rap songs win video contests.  And I don’t want that to sound like sour grapes on my part.  If I was running the contest I would have picked the road trip entry I linked to over my entry.  But I guess rap entries only seem played out to me because I see them in every, single contest I come across.  To contest judges they probably seem super clever.  And the DD rap video is pretty clever.  It’s just the actual delivery is kind of well, awkward.  However, that giant coffee cup costume was hella impressive.  That sucker had to be homemade so my hat’s off to the dude for that one.