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Tongal gets into the music video business

Posted by Dan L. on June 15th, 2013

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2013 has been a very good year for Tongal. The site received $15 Million dollars in funding in January and since then the site has been landing one gigantic client after another. It seems like every few weeks they launch a new $100,000+ commercial contest. Just yesterday I read an announcement for a new $150,000 Tongal “Super Project” that’s sponsored by Gillette. Two years ago that would have been a huge piece of news. But now it’s just another big contest that casually gets revealed on the company’s Facebook page.

On Friday the LA Times reported that Tongal is going to try and capitalize on their new found momentum and branch out into the world of music videos. From the Times:

Tongal, a Southern California start-up that has crowd-sourced video ads for big brands such as Pringles and McDonald’s, is expanding into music.

The Santa Monica-based firm has made a name for itself linking writers, directors and actors with brands to create video ads in exchange for cash prizes. The sponsoring brand chooses the best entries from the users’ submissions.

Tongal will now use its platform to field ideas and production for music videos as online streaming becomes a key way that people consume content, the company said Thursday.

Why would a band use Tongal to produce their next music video? Here’s the answer:

Crowd-sourcing music videos could also save money for the labels, and increase the number of videos they can make, Wolfe said. While $250,000 music videos were once the norm, record companies have pulled back.

At the same time, the demand for videos has increased as fans desire more content to watch on the Web through YouTube and Vevo.

“All the recent research clearly shows YouTube as being the No. 1 place where people consume music,” said Wolfe. “Labels used to spend a quarter-million to make a video that would get one spin a day. The way we do it, we make a video for every track on an album.”

There’s already a video contest site named Genero that’s almost exclusively dedicated to running music video-themed contests. But to be frank, I am not a fan of that site. The problem with Genero is that the prizes are just way too low. Creating an interesting and entertaining 3-minute music video takes a hell of a lot of work. And the job becomes much more difficult if you can’t film the featured artists. If you cant use footage of the band, you’re pretty much making a 3 to 5 minute short film set to music. Gereno usually offers one or two prizes ranging from $3,000 to $5,000 for each contest. So there isn’t a lot of incentive for people to do really great work. But I’m thinking Tongal will probably do this right. If they start offering $50,000+ in prizes per assignment they’re going to be able to lure in some really talented filmmakers.

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How to win your first video contest

Posted by Dan L. on May 6th, 2012

About once a week I’ll get a nice e-mail from a new or longtime reader of VCN that I’ve never heard from before. They usually ask me about a post I did or about some contest that they want to enter. I always like to hear about other filmmakers’ contest experiences so I usually ask these folks what kind of contests they’ve entered and if they’ve ever had any cool wins. Most of the time, the responses I get are very similar. It seems like most new video contest filmmakers exclusively enter the big competitions like Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl contest or Gain’s “Smell Like a Million Bucks” promotion.

And that always kind of surprises me. It’s just not very good strategy. I understand that gigantic cash prizes can be exciting but the odds are really stacked against you in those big contests. Consequently, most of the people who write me say they’ve never won a video contest before. I even heard from one guy last year who said he had entered about 80 video contests but had never actually won one. And that’s pretty messed up since video contests are so ridiculously easy to win!

If you want to win a video contest, you just have to employ a little STRATEGY. Filmmakers should definitely enter huge long-shot contests but you should never put all your eggs in one basket. If you want to actually start winning contests you need to think SMALL. It seems like most video contest filmmakers want to make one big, quick payday. That kind of plan almost never works out. (However the guy who won a million dollars in this year’s Crash the Super Bowl contest with his commercial “” had never entered a video contest before) If you only go after prizes that are say, over $25,000 you’re probably just going to waste a bunch of time and money and eventually get frustrated and quit. If you want to turn video contests into a steady source of income, you have to get your first win under your belt as soon as possible. Not only will a win boost your confidence, it will get you hooked on the feeling that comes with winning and inspire you to enter more contests.

So if you’ve never won a video contest before, it’s time you got your first win out of the way. Next time you’re on onlinevideocontests.com, scroll past all the big money contests and look for contests with prizes under $1,000. Go through those and look at the details carefully. Then pick the one that sounds like you would have the best chance of winning and enter it. You might just be the only person who does. You see…most people are naturally lazy and greedy. I don’t mean that as a slam against the human race. It’s just they way we are. The vast majority of people will look at contests with $500 or $250 prizes and figure it’s not worth their time to enter. But that’s not logical. If you enter the Crash the Super Bowl contest, you will be in the running to win up to one million dollars. But your odds of just making the finals are about 1 in 1,200. So if you enter The Crash, you’re going to spend hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours entering a contest you will almost certainly lose.

On the flip side, if you enter a tiny contest that almost no one will enter, you can spend nothing and have an incredibly decent shot at winning some cash. For example, every year Apartments.com runs a big video contest to find the “Roommate of the Year.” A ton of people always enter and one person wins $10,000 plus a year’s worth of free rent. But this year, Apartments.com is also running a small weekly contest in conjunction with the big contest. People are supposed to get on camera and in 30 seconds demonstrate what makes them a good roommate. The prize is $250 per week. I came across this contest about 2 weeks ago and believe it or not, Apartments.com got ZERO entries the first week! All somebody had to do was spend an hour shooting and uploading anything and it would have won. But nobody bothered. By the second week, only 2 people had entered and the sponsor had to pick a winning video that was just shot with a camera phone. I’ve won a lot of very nice video contest prizes in my day but I’m not an idiot. I knew this contest would be an easy 250 bucks so I entered and I won last week. Click this image to see my video:

Click to watch!

I happen to think that was a pretty hilarious entry. But quality didn’t even matter because no one else entered last week! My only competition was this video which had been submitted the week before. It took me about 2 hours to shoot, edit and upload my entry. My only expense was a $12 pizza which I of course got to eat later. So basically, I earned $125 per/hour on this contest. Now, I probably win 5 or 6 small prizes like this every year. (The day I won this contest I got another $250 check in the mail from a different contest.) An extra $1,500 can really change your life so those little contests are absolutely worth your time and attention. Think about it this way; if you need some extra money, would you rather spend 20 hours a year entering small video contests or 182 hours a year working a part-time, minimum wage job?

If you’re excited by this idea, I have some good news for you. There is still one more week left in Apartments.com’s weekly contest. The deadline to enter is this wednesday at noon and once again, no new entries have been received all week. So if you shoot and upload an entry ASAP you’ll probably discourage other people from entering and you’ll win. I’m telling you, there is a $250 bill on the ground….go pick it up:

The Apartments.com contest is just the tip of the iceberg. There are always a few tiny contests like this running. Most people don’t bother to even look at the details of these contests so they never see just how easy they are to enter. Hell, right now Monster energy drinks is running a video contest to find a new “intern.” The first 250 people that enter win $100 in swag. They’ve only gotten about 100 entries so far. All you gotta do is sit in front of a camera for 60 second and talk about Monster and BOOM….you just won your first ever video contest prize. Here’s the to enter.

Good luck, everybody. If you actually enter and win either of these contests let me know!

How to apply for one of MOFILM’s production grants

Posted by Guest Author on February 17th, 2012

Beardy’s Note: Today I’m happy to bring you folks a very special guest post that was written by a longtime friend of VCN; MOFILM’s director of social media, Kerry Gaffney. Kerry’s going to let you you know how you can apply with Mofilm to get cash to pay for your Mofilm video contest entries. It sort of sounds to good to be true but it’s legit; Mofilm is now paying out production grants to filmmakers left and right. Need some money to hire actors or rent a nicer camera or build some outrageous prop or buy a new piece of editing software? Mofilm wants to help make any and all of that happen. Here’s how you can get a slice of their sweet, production grant pie:

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There are lots of reasons why people like to enter video contests. And there are also lots of reasons why they don’t enter; usually it’s because they run out of time or because they don’t have the money to do their idea justice. MOFILM can’t help with the time element but we’re now doing our best to help with the money side with the introduction of Production Grants.

When we were running the Chevrolet Super Bowl contest last year, we really encouraged filmmakers to make their entries as big and bold as possible. The winning spot had the chance of being aired during the telecast of the Super Bowl LXVI. So we wanted to make sure that all the entries were great enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with, or be even better than, the big agency ads. That’s why we launched the MOFILM Production Grant program. Open to any filmmaker from anywhere around the world, all they had to do was apply; sharing their concepts and giving as much supporting material as they felt like. We gave out over $100,000 last fall and the scheme was so successful we decided to include production grants for as many of our contests as we possible could.

So far in 2012 we’ve approved over $140,000 in grants for 14 different contests to over 100 filmmakers. That’s not a typo, just in January we’ve approved almost $150,000. That’s in addition to the $300,000 in prizes across our Sydney, Barcelona and Texas contests.

So how does it work? It’s easy; go check out the open contests on MOFILM and pick a brand. If there are production grants available there will be a link to the application form right from that page. You need to be quick though, the grants go fast so the sooner you get your application in the better.

For the application we want to know who you are, what your concept is, how much money you’d like (there’s usually a guide as to what’s available on the form) and what you plan to spend the money on. A member of the MOFILM team will then review the applications and decides who gets what. Anyone can apply but your odds of being successful are increased if you have a great idea (natch), have some supporting material like a script or a storyboard, and examples of previous work either with MOFILM or in a link to your showreel on your MOFILM profile.

Once you’ve been told you’ve been successful, you’ll be sent an approval form to fill in and sign. Then you can get on and create. You can bounce ideas off the account manager or ask for advice and feedback. Although, any filmmaker entering one of our contests can do that by asking on or with an email to . Once you’re ready, and before the deadline, upload your video and all the relevant release forms. One of the MOFILM team will then be in touch to ask for receipts and bank details. Once we have that we’re good to make payment and we’ll reimburse your approved expenses. After that, all you have to do is wait to find out if you won!!

—- Guest Post by Kerry Gaffney. Follow Kerry on Twitter —-

The five most over-done Crash the Super Bowl ideas

Posted by Dan L. on November 9th, 2011

Never use the Crash the Super Bowl contest as a chance to see your buddy's girlfriend topless

Man, time really files when you’re trying to come up with a great idea for a Doritos commercial! There’s now less than two weeks left until the deadline for the Crash the Super Bowl contest. So it’s Crunch Time, folks! (pun intended). But before you rush out and start filming, the first step in making a great Doritos commercial is research. Obviously, you should watch all the entries that won the previous installments of the Crash. But you should also try and figure out which concepts have already been done to death. While running this site, I’ve had the opportunity to watch literally thousands of Crash the SuperBowl entries. And there are a few common, played-out gimmicks that I see used over and over and over again. So I am going to do you a gigantic favor and list the Top 5 most over-used Crash the Super Bowl ideas! Every year, Dortios gets tons of videos that have almost identical plots and gags. The ideas might be new to the person who wrote the script but to the judges they are tired and totally unoriginal. So if you want to stand out from the crowd, here are the five concepts that you need to avoid. For each concept I’ll include an example and I’ll try to only post high-quality entries so you can see that even good production values won’t make these ideas seem fresh:

1. Doritos as “paper” footballs

Hey, have you ever noticed that a Dorito kind of looks like a paper football? If so, you’re not alone because apparently a lot of people have noticed that! Over the last five years, I bet fritolay has received hundreds of CTSB entries that featured Doritos being used as “paper footballs.” I’m guessing this idea is so popular because a paper football is about the only small, triangular object most people can think of. What’s crazy about this particular idea is that pretty much every Paper Football entry has the same plot. There is a tense and dramatic stand off between two competitors. The chip is “kicked” in slow motion but at the last second, there’s a twist! Someone jumps into frame and blocks the kick by catching the chip in their mouth.

I’ve been watching the new batch of submissions and already I have seen more than one version of this idea. But this concept is just too obvious. If a Paper Football-themed ad did make the finals, you’d have a hundred people coming forward claiming that the winners stole their idea!

2. Dressing up in a giant Doritos costume

This weekend, dozens of filmmakers across the country will go into their garages and apply the finishing touches to their homemade, giant Doritos costumes. Some of them will just be a single, orange sheet of poster board. Others will be meticulous, high quality suits that are made of foam and finished with an air-brushing of realistic orange and brown paint. But if Frito-lay hasn’t picked a CTSB finalist that featured a guy dressed as a Dorito by now, they are never going to. That’s because no matter how much work a person puts into their Dorito costume, the gag is just too easy. Think of it like this; if Bud Light made a Super Bowl commercial where the joke was that the characters were in homemade Bud Light suits, how do you think that commercial would do on the USA Today ad meter?

3. Zombies!

This idea has been totally done to death. (Pun intended again!) If you head to the Crash the Super Bowl gallery and watch 50 videos in a row, I bet you’d see at least one zombie-themed entry. In fact, I just searched the gallery for the word “zombie” and there are already five submissions with the word zombie in the title!

It’s easy to understand why Dortios gets so many zombie videos though. Zombies are super popular and the costumes are really easy to make. But it’s fascinating how similar all these zombie ads are. I’ll break down a typical story for you; a group of friends are running from hungry zombies. The friends get trapped and the zombies attack. But they don’t eat the people. It turns out one of them has Doritos and that’s what the zombies were after the whole time! Oh but once the Doritos run out, the zombies then turn on the people. The whole plot is so popular among video contest filmmakers that I did an entire blog post about the “Zombie Fake Out” trope. So even though zombie make up is probably 90% off right now at Walmart, resist the temptation to shoot a chip commercial about the undead.

4. Doritos as Mousetrap bait

Doritos are cheesy. So what do people do with cheese? Pretty much just two things; they either eat it or they catch mice with it. (seriously, try and think of something else you can do with cheese) A lot of CTSB filmmakers have made this connection over the years. In fact, one of them even made it to the super bowl thanks to this concept. Way back in 2006, Fritolay picked an ad named “” as one of the finalists in the very first installment of the Crash the Super Bowl contest. I’m sure you remember the commercial because it was so good that five years later, Doritos is still airing the spot on TV! In the ad, a man in a suit puts a piece of a dorito on a mousetrap. He then gets pummeled by a very angry guy in a mouse suit. The ad is so ubiquitous that it’s hard to believe that CTSB contestants keep doing gags about Doritos as mouse trap bait. Sometimes the mouse traps are and sometimes the mousetraps are . Sometimes the mouse traps are meant for mice but usually they are meant for people. But no matter what kind of spin a filmmaker puts on this idea, it simply has already been done perfectly by a previous Crash the Super Bowl winner. For example, the moustrap video I posted above is actually pretty awesome. It even won a prize in Poptent’s video contest “Second Chance” assignment. The way the giant robots lumber slowly in the distance is just perfect. If it hadn’t been for the previous “Mousetrap” ad I think this robot entry could have made the finals last year. But the Crash is all about getting new, off the wall ideas so Doritos isn’t going to pick a finalist that features a “device” that’s already been used.

5. A “Sexy” Doritos Seduction

Let’s end on an over-done idea that I don’t mind so much; the Sexy Doritos seduction. These entries always play out the same way. A husband gets home after a hard day at work to find a trail of Doritos on the floor. He follows the trail and it leads to the bedroom. He opens the door to find his wife laying naked in bed…with only Doritos covering up her girly bits! Of course, sometimes the concept is flipped around and it’s a laying in a bed full of Doritos. Either way, this gag is extremely common. Shoot an entry like this and all you’ll get for your troubles is a set of orange sheets.

If you’ve ever shot a Crash the Super Bowl entry about any of the ideas I just listed, I’m sorry if I offended you! I understand what it’s like to work hard on a video contest entry only to later realize that it was kind of unoriginal. But hopefully this post will help a few filmmakers avoid common, over-done ideas that simply don’t have much chance of winning.

Triaminic starts airing Poptent-made commercial

Posted by Dan L. on November 4th, 2011

The other day I was screwing around on the Internet and I had the TV on in the background. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a Triaminic commercial that looked really familiar. I knew I had seen it before but I also knew I had never actually seen it on TV. I turned up the volume and watched carefully. I could not figure out how I could possibly recognize a brand new TV commercial. What was really weird was that the ad was only 15 seconds long but I was sure I remembered it being longer. About 20 minutes later it finally hit me. I had seen the Triaminic ad on Poptent. I checked the site and the video was created by Poptent’s Super-Salesmen “Bisbinetts” (AKA Joe) for a Triaminic assignment from 2010! I guess Triaminc liked the ad and decided to hold on to it until the 2011 cough and cold season started. I haven’t seen many user-generated ads on TV this year so good for Triaminic for running Joe’s spot. Here’s the 30 second version:

Purchased by Triaminic. Price: $7,500:

How to get unlimited, real youtube views

Posted by Dan L. on October 27th, 2011

Youtube: Where all your viral dreams come true

Every once and a while I will come across a “viral” video contest where the winner is determined by youtube views. And when I do see a contest like that it takes a lot of will power for me NOT to enter. You see, in my time running this website I have learned a lot of shady tricks; and “how to get to get tons of fake youtube views” is one of those tricks. Basically if you go to the right website you can order all the views you want. But those “views” are just fake, junk views. They’re just generated by some guy in India using a computer that is constantly changing its IP address. (or something like that) They don’t come from real people. So in most “viral” contests, buying fake views would be considered cheating. If you buy fake views, there is a chance you could get caught because fake views leave evidence behind. And not only could you get disqualified from the contest you’re in, you could be kicked off of youtube for violating the site’s Terms of Service.

So like I said, I try not to enter “viral” video contests. But about two months ago I came across a contest that was being run by a new micro-jobs website that I just had to enter. The competition was being run in two stages. In the first stage, people were supposed to create funny videos about giraffes (The website’s mascot is a giraffe) and then try to get as many youtube views as they could in four weeks. The people who created the Top 5, most viewed submissions got to go on to round two where they would compete for $15,000. I decided to enter but I promised myself I would NOT buy fake youtube views. () I figured that with the resources I have at my disposal I could get into the Top 5, fair and square. This website just keeps getting more and more traffic so I stuck a banner ad for my own video at the top of this page. And man, did that get me a lot of views! Plus, I have a kind of popular youtube channel with a few thousand subscribers. So I was able to get a good chunk of views from there too.

But inevitably, as the view count deadline approached, the cheating began. Several other contestants started buying fake views and I was pushed out of the Top 5. I contacted the contest organizers and I explained how you could tell when someone’s view count was phony. But they said they really couldn’t do anything about it because the practice wasn’t actually against the rules. (So technically, it wasn’t even cheating!) So basically I recived the OK from the contest organizers to do whatever I could to get in the Top 5. But I still didn’t want to take the easy way out. So I started looking for a legitimate solution to my problem.

And I found that solution in like five minutes. It turns out that any youtube user can now sign up for the site’s “” program. Basically you can now buy views from youtube! Except unlike the other views you can buy, these are REAL views that come from REAL people. If you use youtube’s promotions program to get 10,000 views, it means that 10,000 different people actually watched your video. So while some might consider this bending the rules of a viral video contest, no one could claim that you’re breaking the rules since your views are coming from real people and since you’re not violating youtube’s terms of service.

Here’s how the program works: After you sign up you pick which video you want to promote. Then you tell youtube how much you are willing to pay per view. I think I went with 12 cents but you can go even lower. And remember, that is the most you are willing to pay per view. You then get to select the keywords you want associated with your video. So if your video has a giraffe in it (like mine did) you can select “giraffe” as a keyword. Then when someone searches for giraffe videos on youtube, your video will appear in the “Promoted Videos” sidebar. The more specialized a keyword is, the more you will pay per-click. Here’s a a screengrab of my Promoted Videos Dashboard that shows the keywords I used for my giraffe video:

Note: I cut out the irrelevant parts of this chart in photoshop

So even though I “bid” 12 cents per view, most of my views only cost me 2 or 3 cents. And as you can see, the keyword “funny” was the most popular keyword by a long shot.

After you set your keywords, you tell youtube how much you want to spend every day promoting your videos. If you say “$5.00″ youtube will run your video as an ad all day until you have spent $5.00. I think the best thing about this program is how fast the process is. If you want a huge number of views right away, you can tell youtube you want to spend $200 a day. Youtube will pimp your video like crazy and by end of the day, you’ll have thousands of real views. Here’s what your “dashboard” will look like once your “campaign” is up and running:

Again, this was photo-shopped to save space

The final view count for my giraffe entry was about 16,000. And that was enough to get me into the finals. As you can see, I recived 10,659 views thanks to youtube’s promoted video program. And that means I was able to get 6,000 views on my own. And that’s pretty damn good! If the other contestants hadn’t bought fake views, I would have been able to get in the Top 5 without any help from youtube.

So youtube’s Promoted Videos program is pretty much just a giant, view-creating machine. However many views you want, you can get. And you only get charged when someone actually clicks on your video. But there is one major drawback to this program; this s&%# ain’t cheap. I spent about $300 to get those 10,000 views. So was it a wise purchase? Well, the results of the contest I was will be officially announced on November 1st so check back here on Monday to see how I did.

UPDATE: The sponsored decided to split the prize 3-ways so I won $5,000. That means my investment paid off big time. But one of the other winners just happened to be the biggest cheater in the view-count round. So it was awesome to win $5,000 but I’m annoyed that a cheater got a slice of the grand prize.

Chevy wants to air your video during the Super Bowl!

Posted by Dan L. on June 22nd, 2011

The start of this year’s NFL season is still 3 months away but this morning at the Cannes Lions advertising festival, Chevrolet announced they would be airing 5 commercials during Super Bowl XLVI in February…and one of those ads will be a 30 to 60 second long, consumer-generated “short film” about the spirit of the open road. So get ready folks because Chevy is “Crashing” the 2012 Super Bowl!

But unlike Doritos’ annual “Crash the Superbowl” contest, Chevy will not be running this promotion themselves. Instead, the Chevy competition will be hosted and run by the video contest website, Mofilm. In fact, this morning’s big announcement was made at the Mofilm seminar in Cannes.

Surprisingly, this is going to be a GLOBAL video contest so you don’t need to be a US citizen to enter. The contest will be run in two stages; the Script phase and the Video phase. You have the option of submitting to either or both phases. So if you don’t submit a script, you can still shoot a video. Here’s what Mofilm and Chevy are asking screenwriters to do:

The script for your film should be an epic road trip story or adventure that captures the spirit of Route 66 and Chevrolet! The top five scripts will win serious cash. We will provide feedback on all scripts which will give you a jump start should you decide to produce a video in Round Two.

Yes, you read that correctly. The sponsors will give feedback on ALL scripts that are submitted. That’s huge! It means that anyone who submits to the script phase will have a tremendous advantage when it comes time to shoot their video. There are 5 cash prizes in the script competition ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. Once the script competition ends, a new contest brief for the Video Phase will be launched on September 1st.

If your entry is selected as the winner of the Video Phase, your short will air during the Super Bowl and you’ll receive $25,000. And while this hasn’t been officially announced yet, the folks at Mofilm tell me that the winner will also get a trip to the Big Game.

So how the heck do you win? Well, the winners will be picked by a mix of public voting and judge’s decisions. However, Joel Ewanick, global chief marketing officer at General Motors told The New York Times that while votes will “have a great deal of influence,” the “final say” will be his. So I think we need to wait for the official rules before we know how the winners will actually be chosen. But I’m very glad to hear that votes alone will not determine the winner.

All of this is really exciting news. Last year, Pepsi Max and Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl contest recived more than 5,000 entries and they aired 6 user-made ads. Getting something to air during the SuperBowl would be an amazing accomplishment but a 6 in 5,000 shot aren’t very appealing odds. So if you’re going to enter one HUGE video contest this year, “Route 66″ might be your best bet. I personally am going to make the Chevy Super Bowl contest my top priority for the second half of 2011. The deadline to enter is December 1st but I think I’m going to get to work on this ASAP. The contest was literally just announced like an hour ago so not all of the pertinent info is up on the site yet. But if you want to get a jump on the competition, follow the link below:

Chevrolet Route 66: Super Bowl competition: http://www.mofilm.com/chevroletroute66

PurpleBot: FOR THE WIN!

Posted by Dan L. on June 17th, 2011

Video “assignments” that are run on websites like Poptent, Tongal and Zooppa are great because the sponsors often use the purchased/winning submissions as actual pieces of advertising. But personally I still love straight up, old school video contests. (By “old school” I mean the kind of contests companies were running all of 2 years ago.) I’m talking about the type of thing where a company runs a contest kind of just for fun and invites their fans and customers to submit videos. When people aren’t worried about creating brand-appropriate commercials they’re free to go crazy and do some really goofy stuff. Case in point, Royal Purple’s Reel Wars video contest. RP got some really off-the-wall submissions for this one. I especially liked that made the finals. I figured a beautiful russian girl + a cool car + a baby duck would = a win. But Here’s the video that came out on top:

Grand Prize Winner. Prize: $5,000.

Boosh! Yep, that was and man and I happy to be the winner. Royal Purple really ran a great contest. Even though they got more than 40 entries, RP promised to give every contestant a case of Royal Purple motor oil or a $100 worth of merchandise from their online store. That is a really classy move. It shows contestants that you actually appreciate the time and effort they put into making their entries. And Royal Purple even said they want to set up an interview with me and one of the judges where he’ll present me with a giant novelty check. No joke: Receiving a giant novelty check is one of my Life Goals! So I guess I can cross that particular item the bucket list.

Well, I’m going to do some celebrating this weekend, that’s for sure. Have a happy Friday everybody. But heads up…be sure to check back here early next week. We’re going to be announcing a MAJOR piece of video contest news in a few days. I can’t talk about it yet because I’m under a press embargo. (My second this week!) But I will tell you this, it’s a really SUPER piece of news. I’m not sure yet when the embargo will be lifted but it should be Wednesday at the latest.