Category Archives: Contest

Contest, Online Video

Keeping Ad Executives Relevant

12 Comments

heinz.jpgThis consumer-generated advertising phase is soooo over. Get real. A bunch of idiots with a webcam will never threaten big agencies. In fact I “threw” this Heinz ketchup ad just to keep the advertising agency model vibrant.

There were more than 2,600 entries to the Heinz Ketchup contest on YouTube. Voting occurs between August 27 and September 10, and the prizes include cash and the chance of having your clip seen on television.

I don’t plan to win given the competition and the “inside joke” line at the end. But I do hope ChurchofDave ranks.

Is it just me or is this contest running slower than ketchup pouring from a bottle of Heinz?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxsfJOlS1Y8]

Contest, Online Video

Where Can I Find Video Contests?

7 Comments

Two sites that feature online-video contests:

  1. Vidopps (5 stars: kept current as of this writing- can sign up for e-mail alerts)
  2. Online-video Contests (4 stars: pretty but not as comprehensive- can sign up for e-mail alerts)
  3. YouTube contests (3 stars: not enough)
  4. XLNTads (too new to rate, and I’m biased since they sponsor me)
  5. About.com Desktop Video (1 star: dated and annoying auto-roll ads)

When you enter, don’t forget to try these techniques to increase your chance of winning.

Contest, Making Videos, Viral Video

Save the Water Contest (exclusive)

5 Comments

water.jpgEvery once in a while, your humble WillVideoforFood gets an exclusive. Here’s one.

The folks at Rain Bird Corporation (a manufacturer of irrigation products and services) are doing a film contest to raise awareness of water conservation. “The Intelligent Use of Water” Film Competition seeks short films (1-20 minutes in actual or excerpted run time) that focus on the topic of water conservation. Says a forthcoming release, “Narrative, documentary, animated, experimental and/or student-made productions should explore approaches and ideas to intelligently manage and efficiently utilize the Earth’s most precious resource.”

Filmmakers who submit their short film (in English) on DVD/VHS or electronically via the competition website will have their films reviewed by a panel of judges with academic, professional, industrial or governmental expertise in film and/or water conservation. Finalists will be selected and invited to a screening event on September 30, 2007, in Los Angeles at the LA Arboretum, where the winners will be announced and awarded cash prizes of $6,000 for judges’ selection and $3,000 for audience’s pick.

All entries must be submitted on DVD or VHS in NTSC format or as a .mov, .wmv or .mpg file no later than August 15, 2007, for consideration. Visit http://www.iuowfilm.com for more information on the competition and entry requirements.

See “more” for, um, more.

Continue reading Save the Water Contest (exclusive) →

book, Contest, Making Videos, Video Advertising, Video Business, Video Contests

How to Find and Win Video Contests

5 Comments

xlntads.jpgHow do you make sure you’re not missing video contests? No excuses anymore.

  1. You can check into YouTube’s contest page
  2. You can hit this VidOpp for a nice summary of contests.
  3. You can register on Xlntads.com, which hosts custom contests (and is currently running a contest for itself). Click here to register, and tell ’em Nalts sent you on the “referred by” drop-down on the registration page. You’ll then get e-mail alerts as contests launch.

Disclaimer: I am helping Xlntads liason with creators (see news).

Top 10 tips on how to increase your odds of winning.

  1. Make your entry entertaining first, then worry about promotion. Being over promotional looks like you’re pandering and bores viewers.
  2. Think like the brand leader. Are you giving him something he can show his boss without looking stupid?
  3. If someone personally reaches out to you, it’s worth more consideration.
  4. Play odds in your favor. Go for contests with lots of decent finalist prizes instead of one brass ring for the winner.
  5. Enter brands that fit your own style, and that will add to your resume.
  6. Watch the entries. If they’re super polished, then think realistically before you invest time. Also recognize that many entries will come in last minute.
  7. Read the rules carefully. It’s easy to get disqualified over a technicality. That happened with me and a Coke contest because my  wife and I were humming a song from the Muppets.
  8. As soon as you learn about a contest, prepare and shoot your entry. Your initial enthusiasm will fade.
  9. Try not to give up when you lose or become a runner’s up. It takes persistence and luck.
  10. Consider the age and style of the brand’s target audience. I learned that putting my kids in some contests increased my placement, but hurt me in others.
Contest, Viral Video

Off the Ladder. Into the Street. But…

4 Comments

ssdsdsd.jpgIn this amazing Davideo clip, we see him narrowly avert getting run over by a car. It’s one of Davideo’s three entries to the Lucozade Energy “Lost Your Edge” contest.

You’ll need to register to vote, but it’s instant (no e-mail confirmation). Another good reason for a brand to not host its own contest site. They require registration to avoid manipulation (and to generate leads), but that probably is more than 90% of us will tolerate.

Davideo gets 10,000 pounds if he wins, and has promised to share the wealth with WVFF readers.

Davideo Design’s other two entries include a fist fight and a Storm Trooper battle.

Contest, Online Video

Ten Tips for Holding a Better Online-Video Contest

17 Comments

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

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.
advertising, book, Contest, Online Video

Ketchup Contest

14 Comments

ketchup.jpgWhat do you do when you hold a ketchup contest and about half of the entries are from one guy? Here’s Heinz’s YouTube site, and here’s the gratuitous contest site the agency presumably convinced the brand to build (equiped with auto-rolling video- ick).

Still, it’s a good brand for a contest, isn’t it? Who can’t have fun with ketchup?

We should buy Heinz by the gallon the way my kids ingest it. And of course I would no more buy another brand than I would dare stray from Morton’s salt. Can you imagine eating generic ketchup or salt? Life’s too short for that.

Contest

Mr. Clean Contest

16 Comments

mrclean.jpgMr. Clean says to enter his contest or he’ll use those large bicepts to pummel you.

Big stakes ($10K) but the prize only goes to one winner. And I’m “perpetual runner’s up guy.” But I’ve got my idea, and it’s part based on reality. My wife has a crush on Mr. Clean. And I try to win back her affection- my hairline IS slightly better than Mr. Clean’s.

What do you think? Any comedic elements I can introduce? Don’t worry. You’ll get credit. No cash but credit. I just want some free “Magic Erasors.” We go through those things like toilet paper.

Contest, Online Video

A Video Contest Site Without Flashterbation

30 Comments

cafeconfidential.jpgI’ve made my career never winning a contest, but placing as a finalist in many. So I believe I can speak with some authority in saying that most contest sites suck. That can be for a number of reasons: the prizes aren’t right, the theme is too rescrictive, the site is easy to forget about, it’s too commercial, competitive or cumbersome (I just had to force myself not to make a “6 C’s of bad contest” post).

Here’s an exception. Metacafe and American Apparel are holding a “Cafe Confidential” contest inviting video creators to tell short stories and win these prizes:

  • First Prize: $1500 American Apparel Shopping Spree
  • Second Prize: $1000 American Apparel Shopping Spree
  • Third Prize: $500 American Apparel Shopping Spree
  • 20 Fourth Prizes: $100 American Apparel gift certificates

To enter you can make up a story about any of the following: My Craziest Day at Work, My First Time (for the internationl kids, this means sex), My Most Embarrassing Moment, My Weird Family, My Wildest Drinking Story, My Worst Date or Miscellaneous. If you really want to score, trying to think of an embarassing story about a crazy time having sex with someone in your family while drunk at work.

Here’s why this contest site is better than most:

  1. There’s not just one prize. Borat is running a contest now withe one grand prize winner. The odds are much better on this one.
  2. The advertiser partnered with one site, instead of building a desert island flash site that will be trashed when the contest is over. 
  3. There’s consistency between the brand (American Apparel), the theme and the online video site. Metacafe tends to lean edgy (without going as far as Break.com), and the topics fit the site.
  4. This should attract anyone with a camera. You don’t need to be a great editor to win this. Just a good story teller.
  5. The user interface on the contest site is nice. Your typical contest site is usually designed as an exercize in flashterbation. WOAH- Did I coin a word there? Damn I like that. I’m changing the headline.
  6. The site is prepopulated with videos. So I can be entertained the first time I arrive at the contest site. This is risky, however. If the sample videos are too good, the contest site can scare off hopefuls.