Hello Minions of the kingdom, are you as sick and tired as I am of seeing this pop-up banner flash across your email pane? Whew, talk about wearing out a welcome. I wonder what the fallout will be when one of these high profile contest’s decide to execute a year long voting period instead of just a month……………I wonder how that will fly. Wait, better yet…..how about a life long campaign period. Yeah, that’ll work: At birth you are assigned the brand to which you will dedicate your life.
A blog post for another day.
In a few short weeks I’ll be able to put the Doritos back in the cupboard until next year, (figuratively speaking of course, since I actually love them and eat way too many), but for now the climax we’ve all anticipated is fast approaching. Here are the numbers with just 2 days left in the campaign.
Total number of VIEWS for all six finalists between:
January 05, 2010 and – January 29, 2010 9:00AM
Casket: 83,708
Snack Attack Samurai: 68,529
House Rules: 66,976
Underdog: 64,573
Kids these days: 62,719
The Smackout: 60,005
‘Casket’ appears to be a shoe in. It also appears that ‘Smack Attack’ will make the final cut. The third slot appears more competitive but will most likely be nabbed by ‘House Rules’, and here is why.
Roughly a week ago, ‘House Rules’ (3rd place) held a 1,135 view advantage over 4th place ‘UnderDog’. In the week since, ‘House rules’ has increased it’s advantage to 2,403. In and of itself this increase wouldn’t be conclusive enough to demonstrate a trend, but married with the increase over the same time period, it does not look good for UnderDog.
EG: From January 22nd thru January 29 ‘House Rule’ total view count was 16,672, while UnderDog’s was 15,404. ‘House Rules’ amassed 1,268 more views than ‘UnderDog’ during the one week time frame and widened the overall gap instead of narrowing it. Were ‘UnderDog’ capable of overtaking ‘HouseRules’, these figures should have been reversed. Neither do the bottom two videos, The Smackout or Kids These Days, appear to be have the steam necessary to make any kind of meaningful push. With just a few days left in voting, I don’t see this trend changing the leader-board dynamics in any appreciateable way.
History: Back in 2007, anything was possible. The Press so loved this Doritos story that it was possible for a news bombshell to change things overnight. A favorable story on a large local TV affiliate could tip the voting scales dynamically. This in fact was the case when in the last few hours of voting back in 2007, some great press coverage in Chicago of Illinois native Kristin Dehnert‘s ‘Check Out Girl‘, almost robbed 5Points of their first Superbowl commercial prize. In actuality, ‘Check out Girl’ did go on to air during the Superbowl along with 5Point’s ‘Live the Flavor’. When you own the Potato Chip store (FritoLays) you get to do whatever you want, rules aside.
These days however, the press is less impressed with the marketing ploys of these types of contests and I would be hard pressed to imagine a major news outlet considering this a ‘newsworthy’ event in these last few days if they haven’t already.
With this in mind, I think the bracket will stand. The VCK predicts that those commercials in green will get SuperBowl play and those in red will not.
Casket
Snack Attack Samurai
House Rules
Underdog
The Smackout
Kids these days
Video Contest King 
So, for someone just starting to enter contests such as myself, do you think it’s wiser just to enter the lower-profile contests (for now?)? They offer less prize money, but less competition, too–or so it seems. And I’m just doing this for fun; I have a full-time job I love but I have a fair amount of breaks and time off, so I like making little videos.
If you have a minute, I’d like your opinion of my latest video, “Mysterious Meat Charges” for the “Greencrest Complaints” contest sponsored by Application Security, Inc. It can be found here: http://www.theunprotected.net/
(it’s currently on “top” of the “complaints” pile),
or find it here: http://www.youtube.com/group/greencrestsupport#p/r/0/NoBnuvc2d44
I know it looks orange-ish. I think we made a mistake by leaving the camera on auto-white balance. And…there are other problems with it, too. But I’d still like your thoughts–and also on my question about lesser-profile contests. I love your blog, by the way!
Hey Judy,
I see the submission period is over for the contest. Give me an idea of how many entrants there were and what kind of prize money was involved. It will help me give you a better answer to your question(s). I watched your video and will give you a mini review after I get that information from you.
The VCK
Hi, VCK!
Thanks for replying so fast! They removed the rules, I see (I should have print-screened it and saved them–I notice that this was yet another contest that seemed to change the file size requirement late in the contest submission period from 100 MB to a higher amount. Why is that?!).
For this contest, you were supposed to create a complaint video about the fictional Greencrest company’s breach–a hacker has broken in and stolen personal credit card information. About 24 videos are entered in the contest.
Interestingly, this company, Application Security Inc., had a nearly-simultaneous contest going that was to advertise their company, I guess (I only found out about it recently)–and it closed in late December. Here is the link to those videos (notice that Michael Beaudoin entered that one with a cute musical but surprisingly they went with a foul-mouthed entry that was a clever metaphor for identity theft, but somewhat PG-13 or R rated):
That contest and this contest have the same prize (though it was somewhat self-contradictory: sometimes it says $500 in American Express gift cards for the winner; in another place it says $1,000 cash. I just found the official rules cached page through Google. It’s at: http://www.appsecinc.com/theunprotected/rules.html
Those rules are awkwardly written, I think, because they probably just modified the rules for the smackdown contest (do you notice how the prize mentioned early on the official rules contradicts the prize under “prizes” down further on the page? Strange.) Notice that the videomaker retains ownership of the video, which is nice.
Also, this will be judged by a panel within the company, not the public.
Hey Judy,
Thanks for all of the info. I don’t doubt that Michaels entry rocked. he is a very talented dude.
RE: Which contests to join.
I think you are smart to ask this question. Clearly it is always better (no matter who you are) to enter a contest with as little competition as possible. That being said, I recently entered the Louisiana Hot Sauce contests (still one more day left to enter), and thought that the smallish $5,000.00 1st prize would attract less of a crowd than say the ‘Wonderful Pissed-off-io’ contest. I was wrong.
There are indications that before it’s over the LHS contest will host some great competition, even for a seasoned vet who has several national commercials under his belt. It seems that there are more and more creatives competing for prize money these days. The competition is growing.
I think what is smart is to be as objective as possible regarding ones work/talent and enter contests accordingly. These days, 5K and over getting some very talented creative.
RE: Your video
I will tell you the things I noticed that require attention. There is no reason spending time on the things that are good. Pats on the back never improve our craft. Keep in mind Judy, I am always reviewing these commercials against the criteria required for national play.
1. The acting was weak. Right off the bat it hinders the forward movement of the story.
2. The DP is poor. Typically when emotions of anger/disappointment/distraught are being portrayed, they beg a CU of the person delivering those lines. We never connected with the lead characters because of the absence of compelling camera work.
3. The Directing: In those last clips where the doggie is at the computer, he should have been facing the computer…that would have been funny. That he was still looking at the owners/director, hurt the comedy/story. Also don’t understand the need for the hug at the end. A simple pat on the head as you walked by would have been much more comedic.
4. Props; The opening prop of the red ‘thing’ on the couch was a little disturbing. I am sure most ‘House Dog’ owners would understand why something like that would be on a humans couch being gnawed on by a dog, the rest of us would not. Kind of grossed me out.
5. The editing was a little sporadic. I am sure in your mind you knew exactly what you wanted to say with the opacity shifts and paperwork and fade ins/outs, but to me it just seemed busy, and again, didn’t move the story forward….just cluttered it.
6. Length: When it is all said and done, this is easily a story that should have been told in :30. The viewer ‘gets’ that there were doggie-related expenses being racked up on the card after the first couple of bits. There were jsut too many of them, overkill.
7. Site Gags: There was no single memorable/comedic site gag for the viewer to want to watch the video a second time or ‘share’ with an internet contact.
Well, there you are Judy. This is where we say goodbye. My ears burn, and you never visit my blog again. As I stab peers in the front by review, they regularly never re-visit the kingdom. I hope things can be different between you and I, coz you seem pretty cool, but you should know by now that I always tell it like it is.
The VCK
Thank you! Actually, you gave us a lot to think about–we never would have thought about the red thing on the couch as being icky! Good point. I see that now.
Yeah, the acting ain’t great. But–the dog! The dog’s not bad, right? One reason we didn’t have closeups on us is because we knew the dog was more interesting to look at. We did have medium shots of us, but didn’t use them much because I went with the dog angle. But, you’re right. I do see that now. 😉
My husband agrees with a lot of what you say and also was surpised I spent so much time on the ending–it’s true that the pat would have worked. But we thought the look to the camera was funny….though, he could have done that with a pat, true. Yeah–I wish we had done that.
I can take it, VCK. I’m learning and I think the videos I am doing are getting better each time. That’s my goal, anyway. 🙂
I get the feeling that not many women enter these contests…or are competitive for them. Is that true? Why do you think that is?
And do you find that the rules are changed much by the company during the submission period…very often? Do they do that because a lot of videos they want are not following the original rules?
Judy, remember that your dog is just a dog. It is why you can never ask me if my little 6 year old daughter is the most beautiful little girl in the world, because I honestly believe she is. During the casting session of a paying commercial though I would totally piss off her mother.
I was going to mention that you spent way too much camera time on the dog. It is probably why the lack of human clips was so noticeable. Your decision to use last shot of you hugging (expressing your love for) your dog demonstrates to the viewer how bias you are to your pup. It was almost as if the story/script changed right there at the very end.
Definitely much less women enter these contests than men. Can’t tell you why.
I think that the brands (marketing companies the brands hire) change their rules mainly for one purpose: To insure the best possible outcome for themselves and the brand that hires them. The poor slob of a contestant is the last consideration given when deciding wether or not to alter a contest rule.
The VCK
p.s. When you wake up tomorrow, clear some snow away in your front yard and kiss the ground for me. I miss my old stomping grounds. God’s country.