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Pizza, Halloween and video contests are three of my favorite things. So as far as I’m concerned the only thing better than a Halloween-themed video contest about pizza would be…oh I don’t know….a boob-themed roller coaster about chocolate cake. Unfortunately, those only exist in my dream journal. But Home Run Inn Pizza actually does run a Halloween-themed video contest every October. They’ve held the contest for the last four years and each time they re-launch it I get excited, read the rules and then get bummed. It would be so easy and fun to shoot a wacky, funny, scary video about pizza but for some reason the folks at Home Run Inn let votes alone determine the winners. So the people that enter this contest don’t really need to TRY when they create their entries. I could shoot a video of myself in a hockey mask cutting a pizza with a chainsaw and I could win the $2,500 grand prize if I was willing to spend 2 weeks hustling for votes. Now that I think about it, the people who won the contest this year probably spent 4 hours shooting and editing their submission and 40 hours trying to get enough votes to win.
I understand WHY Home Run Inn would run their contest this way; they want to try and get a ton of new people to “like” their facebook page and accept their app. But people who like a page so they can vote for their friend’s entry are junk likes. Most of those people will probably delete the HRI app and un-like the company’s page after their friend loses the contest. And let’s be real….there’s a good chance that a whole lot of the votes cast in this contest are fake. So the whole thing really sort of feels like a pointless exercise. If Home Run Inn really wants to increase the number of fans they have on facebook, and if they don’t care whether or not those fans are real people, they should just save everyone a bunch of time and buy likes in bulk from spammers in India.
Home Run Inn announced the of this contest on November 1st but I’m not going to bother posting the winning video because WHO wins this contest doesn’t actually matter. This is a voting contest, not a video contest. I think the thing that bothers me the most about this promotion is that if the sponsor’s just tweaked the rules a tiny bit it could be a really awesome contest. Instead of letting “the public” pick the winners, why not let votes determine a set of finalists and then Home Run Inn judges could select the best video? If they did it that way, HRI would get the traffic and likes they desire and they could also get some free press and some facebook “shares” if they posted a winner that was actually entertaining enough to re-post.
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I didn’t realize that about the contest. I always forget about this contest until its too late to do anything. I watched the #1 winning entry and thought damn if this won 1st place I should definitely enter next year because this is a piece of garbage and I know I can do better than that.
Sounds like everybody here is a sore loser to me. How many other video contests are there every year? And you read the comments after they announce the winners, the comments all look the same: “The contest is rigged!” “I could have made a better video.” “They were cheating.” That is the nature of contests. There will always be people complaining because they didn’t win. If Home Run Inn decided the winner and you didn’t agree with them, you would be saying Home Run Inn rigged the contest. I voted on several different videos in the contest this year. I thought the winning video was pretty good. Had a nice comical twist to it. I was so glad to see that computer generated one didn’t win again! But don’t sit on your *ss and criticize people and say you can do better. If you can, then make a video and enter it. And if it wins, congratulations to you.
Josh,
First, just let me say that I did not enter this contest so I’m not just being a sore loser. Second, it seems like you didn’t actually read this post before you commented. You said….
“don’t sit on your *ss and criticize people and say you can do better. If you can, then make a video and enter it.”
But making a “better” video isn’t how you win this contest. That was the whole point of my post. Votes are the only thing that matter. So someone could make the most amazing pizza-themed video ever and they still would lose to whoever spent the most time cheating or hustling for votes.
It sounds like you know a lot about this contest and followed it last year. Did you enter? Do you know the winners?
And your are not reading what I’m saying. There is no perfect contest. There are always “sour grapes” type comments after the fact. Be it a popular vote or sponsor judges decide contest. And if Home Run Inn decided the winner this year and you didn’t like the video, there would be Home Run Inn is unfair and the contest is fixed type comments. And by your reasoning, all contests that utilize online voting or the popular vote are skewed or unfair? And a person who wins a popular vote contest is not deserving of winning and should be considered inferior or not the true winner? How? Or as you say, someone could make “the most amazing pizza-themed video ever” By whose definition? It is an entirely subjective definition. Have you ever watched the Academy Awards? Does the truly best movie win each? Some say yes, some say no. Is it flawed? Who can say. There are always comments swirling around after the awards show is over. My friend had a video in the Home Run Inn contest. I voted everyday for it and a couple of others I liked. No, he didn’t win. But is he a sore loser and putting down the contest or winner, no. Does he say he was cheated, no. He said he will try again next year. It’s not perfection, it’s a contest.