I’ve talked to a lot of people who run video contests over the years and one of the most interesting bits of inside information I’ve ever learned is this; apparently many companies are hesitant to run video contests because they don’t want protestors to hijack the promotion.  For example, I once heard a (possibly apocryphal) story about an SUV company that ran a video contest that was flooded with “ads” that mocked the vehicles for being gas guzzling monstrosities.  This is one reason that so many brands put such tight controls on where you can post your entries and how you can use their logos.  They don’t want to lose control over the content they receive.  No one will care if some random troublemaker posts a snarky parody ad bashing an oil company or a fast food chain on youtube.  But if protestors can take over and ruin a company’s PR stunt that would be both hilarious and newsworthy.

Earlier this week it looked like Shell had been the “victim” of just this type of contest trolling.  A website that claimed to be owned by Shell launched a consumer-generated ad contest in which users could add captions to stock photos of the arctic.  As you can imagine, protestors jumped all over this and used the site’s “Ad Generator” to create sarcastic ads that mocked Shell’s arctic drilling operations.  In fact, if you look at the contest gallery, every entry seems to be a joke.  Here are two of my favorites:

So the Internet has been buzzing about how Shell’s ad campaign had backfired and how no one at the company had even noticed that their site was filled with hundreds of protest ads.  But yesterday it was revealed that the entire contest was a hoax created by The Yes Men and GreenPeace.  Here is the statement that Shell released on Thursday:

Shell not involved in spoof video and fake advertisements

Journalists, blog readers and YouTube viewers have recently been targeted with scams launched by organizations opposed to energy exploration in Alaska.   A contest on a mock Shell website promotes the creation of fake advertisements.   A video purports to show a bungled corporate PR event at the Seattle Space Needle.  And a false press release claimed that the company is considering legal action against the scam campaign.

Just in case there is any remaining doubt, Shell did not host, nor participate in an event at the Space Needle.  The video does not involve Shell or any of its employees.  The advertising contest is not associated with Shell, and neither is the site it’s on.  And Shell did not file legal action in this matter.  Our focus is on safely executing our operations.

Further, we care that people are not deceived; and in the spirit of intelligent debate on such a serious topic, we continue to offer our own (genuine) views as well as a few real facts about the challenges and opportunities of arctic exploration at www.shell.us/alaska.

The video that the press release refers to was shot at a fake Shell event at the Space Needle.  You can watch it here.  I was surprised that anyone actually thought that event was real since the old lady that got oil sprayed on her wasn’t such a great actress.  The fake contest site on the other hand totally had me fooled.  It’s a great prank but there is a downside here; this fake contest will probably become the new cautionary tale that comes up every time a company debates holding any kind of consumer generated ad contest.  But if a company does things that many people feel are immoral or dangerous, maybe they shouldn’t be asking the public to make their ads anyway.

As part of the hoax, the folks behind the site actually shut down the ad-generator to make it look like Shell finally caught on to what was happening.  But you can still see all the ads that were submitted here:  http://arcticready.com/social/gallery.  If you take a look at the homepage it becomes very obvious that this was built as parody/protest site.