Ten Tips for Holding a Better Online-Video Contest

Video contests continue to roll out, often ignoring some of the basics for attracting good entries. Some examples from the past few days…

• Mount Olive Pickle Company is seeking 30 to 60-second videos describing why Mt. Olive “is the perfect pickle.”
• Plan N Trade Franchise, Inc., is hosting a “National Guitar Hero II video contest.” Entries can be submitted video a PNTGame channel on YouTube through June 16. Prize is a “guitar hero bundle” or a $50 gift card.
• Mailbu is seeking the most creative video rendition of the iconic song, Banana Boat (Day-O). Efren Ramirez (Napoleon Dynamite and Employee of the Month) will help select one winner to receive the deeds to a “lush tropical banana grove” or a $25,000 cash prize alternative.

As a video creator that has entered his fair share of contests, let me recap some of the things that make a contest appealing to online-video creators.

1. Lose the giant grand prize, and focus on giving the best 10 winners a good incentive. How many people feel like they have a good shot at $25K to nail “Banana Boat”? What if it was $10,000 top prize and 15 $1,000 “runners up” prizes?
2. Recognize that your target (video creators) aren’t strictly motivated by cash. Fame, non-monetary prizes (with high perceived value), public relations, meeting celebrities… the list goes on.
3. Not every brand is right for a contest. Clearly the ones that do the best are those with great fan appeal… Mac, Mentos, Coke, Doritos and just about any beer brand.
4. Choose your partners wisely and avoid a disposable website.  You don’t need your agency creating a big video-contest site which will effectively be a “throw away” when the contest is over. Hosting it on YouTube or another online-video site is smart because you can promote in the context of other promotions. The trade off, of course, is that you have less control of the functions on the contest. Also- your contest promotion beyond YouTube could be wasted — people visit your contest page, and then are drawn away more interesting content on YouTube. Before you build something, identify firms that have run contests and that aren’t in the business of deriving revenue from website development. They won’t pitch you a bloated flash site, and may help you partner with a firm that has customized tools so you’re not building a promotion website from ground up. You also want someone that understands the complexity of contest rules and state-by-state nuances.
5. Promotion is where most contests fail. Brands either forget to allocate online-media dollars to promote interest, or assume a press release will do it. Dove blitzed YouTube and other online-video sites with banner ads to promote its contest, but that’s extremely expensive and unwise unless you’re getting some product branding out of it.
6. Fish where the fish are. People who enter contests have defined paths. If you want sloppy, random videos then drop banners on every online-video site. If you want quality entries, then target a more advanced amateur video creator — someone who is interested in building their portfolio and doesn’t mind promoting products.
7. Know that good creators evaluate a return on their time investment. They’re often busy with day jobs, and have a premium associated with their time creating videos. As a prominent creator recently observed to me, “it would cost me a couple thousand dollars worth my time to enter a contest, and if I don’t feel like I have a solid chance of making that back it’s not worth it.”
8. Consider identifying some known video creators and asking them to “seed” entries and promote the contest. Some will charge and others won’t, but this gets you two things. First, you gain credibility if the creator is known and liked. Second, if they post their entry to their own fan base (via, for example, a YouTube channel) you’ll get tens of thousands of people learning about the contest. Their odds of entering the contest are exponentially higher than someone that blazes past a banner.
9. Be mindful of the fact that people will scan the posted entries to make their determination about entering. If one of the videos is incredible, I’m going to probably pass unless there are decent “runner up” prizes. And if the entries are a joke it feels like an illegitimate promotion. Ideally I want to see decent videos that are just slightly worse than something I could create.
10. Timing is everything. Video creators need time to learn about a contest and put something together and you don’t want to have to extend your deadline if the quantity of entries is embarrassing. But there’s something unappealing about a contest that won’t be judged for 4-6 months. Also remember that many of your entries will come in at the last minute (we creators are a procrastinating group). One contest saw 60 percent of its entries in the last 24 hours. So don’t panic until the deadline is up.

No related posts.