Poptent is our new community site where brands and independent video creators connect.
Inside Online Video just pointed to this great video of clips from inside the office of the early days of YouTube. We’ll be posting some of our ‘remember when’ office videos once we’re a huge success! Do you want to be a part of what we’re doing now before we’re big and famous? Come on, cowboy! Join the club!
Tags: youtube, startup, video, xlntads, inspiration
We couldn’t be happier with the awesome turn out for our XLNTads ‘XLNT Brands‘ series of ad contests. We invented eight brands for our community to work on, to come up with creative ideas and videos for, and they did not let us down! Check out the amazing work for each brand (or browse them all here). There are over 120 videos! I’m so proud of all them.
We’ve been absolutely floored by the utter creativity, stellar production quality and fantastic brand concepts. Our community of video creators have all done a fantastic job. We love ‘em all! Now, it’s up to the judging. We’ll be calculating the best of the best over the next week or so. Stay tuned for the big announcements! Up for grabs are 8 First Prizes of $1500 (one for each contest), and 40 Runner-up Prizes of $250 (5 for each contest).
Come on over, sign up and vote for your favorites!
Tags: xlntads, chocobana, branding, video, advertising, cga, marketing, startup, community, viral, xlnt
For this week’s edition of Creative Inspiration, I wanted to point out a great ad that AgencySpy wrote about. It’s not CGA, but it captures something special in simple, elegant terms with an on-the-fly production. It’s a great lesson in keeping your eye out for creative opportunities wherever they might arise:
A new Adidas viral ad features All Blacks rugby union star Dan Carter shooting the s**t with his father in his backyard. It’s an unscripted spot viral spot that took the agency 180 Amsterdam about 30 minutes to capture. It was almost an accident, as they were really in New Zealand to shoot a full fledge commercial. We just love the use of opportunity here.
Tags: agency spy, xlntads, creativity, advertising, cga, adidas, video
Nanette Marcus at iMedia Connection interviewed advertising critic Bob Garfield about his picks for the five best consumer-generated ads. Wouldn’t you know it? For one of his pick, he chose our buddy and XLNTads Creator Nalts‘ Mentos ad as one of the best! wOOt! Go Nalts!
Tags: bob garfield, xlntads, nalts, mentos, advertising, cga, imedia connection
Heinz ran a months-long, highly publicized and rather expensive CGA campaign for it’s new television commercial. The winning video got it’s 30-seconds of fame when it ran primetime during the Emmy Awards. Truthfully, it’s a pretty decent ad, one that beat out 4,000 competing videos promoting the ketchup brand. But, seriously, guys. You should see that awesome ads we got for our much briefer XLNT Brands contests. Our creators are kicking butt. More on that in a moment.
Tags: heinz, ketchup, cga, advertising, marketing, video, xlntads
I don’t know what it is these kids are drinking, but they’re just killin’ us with amazing XLNT ChocoBana ads! First it was Zack Scott singing about penguins starting fires, then it was WoodshopFilms getting the crazy Mexican wrestlers at it, and now the BDub Productions guys hit us with this! Dang, the creativity is blowing up! Boy, it’s going to be a tight race for that grand prize! Let’s see who wins after the weekend!
Tags: video, contest, xlntads, funny, rap, viral, advertising, marketing
If you haven’t seen this brilliant piece celebrating the rise of consumer-generated media yet, allow us to share the love. Internet People! FTW!
Tags: internet people, xlntads, video, fun, humor, inspiration, cartoon, cgm
Diggin’ the new ABC show iCaught. Have you see it? They’ve been exploring the different ways in which consumer-generated media is changing the information landscape (I wonder if they’re going to feature XLNTads soon?). In an upcoming episode, they feature the efforts of some people to use video to get some customer satisfaction. With a larger and larger community of people creating and uploading, video now has the power for consumers to have a strong voice in how they interract with companies. XLNTads, of course, hopes to bend that angle towards a positive relationship, but have a look at this piece to see how things can go wrong for a brand with bad communication skills.
While we were shooting some XLNTads promotional videos over at Woodshop Films, our friend Nalts of Will Video For Food stopped over and shot a quick video for his hilarious vlog on YouTube. He needed a ‘campaign advisor’ for his YouTubian Party Presidential nomination, and Neil stepped to the plate. Have a look:
Make sure to check out Part 2, also!
Tags: youtube, nalts, xlntads, funny, comedy, video, will video for food, neil perry
The (in)famous video maker and blogger, Nalts just made an awesome video full of love for us here at XLNTads. He might want to be careful with that chainsaw, though. Man, what a nut. I guess the printer was out of ink.
Tags: nalts, kevin nalty, video, viral, xlntads, advertising, funny
Brett Slater of Slater’s Garage is one of the newest media creators to join up the XLNTads community. We’re very excited to have him working with us! First, he made us this great ad for our XLNT DIY ad contest:
Then he left a great comment for us on Kevin Natly’s blog while they were discussing consumer-made advertising. After praising our efforts (Thanks, Brett!), he went on to point out some excellent tips for consumer-generated advertising creators.
In a world where people (particularly the ever-important 18-34 demo) are getting more and more tuned in to the BS factor of “conventional” ads, what better way for products to be promoted than by regular folks? Like a lot of people nowadays, I’d sooner believe the testimony of a friend, or even “some guy,” than I would the stereotypical Madison Avenue-type spots that have ruled the roost for lo these past several decades… However, there are certain aspects of conventional advertising that I think still hold true in a CGA format:
1) Don’t forget to make it about the product. As a CGA creator, it’s great that your spot is funny and entertaining. It should be. But make the comedy pertinent to the task at hand — which is to promote the brand. Ask yourself sincerely: Is this about me, or about the product?
2) If you’re specifically hired to make CGA media, don’t forget, you’re making an ad… It doesn’t have to look or feel like an ad, but you do have clients to satisfy. Make sure you and the client are in agreement over who the ad should speak to, and what it should contain and/or depict.
3) Think in round numbers. 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 60 seconds. It’s just easier on everybody…
4) If you’re making CGA just “for fun,” in hopes of your idea being “picked up,” prepare to have it picked up, walked away with, and passed off as someone else’s. If the idea is good — REALLY good — someone will want to steal it. Be careful. Nothing would burn my you-know-what worse than if I did a YouTube video for sneakers, say, and then saw my idea ripped off and broadcast during a ball game 4 months later with other actors and stuff…
Looking ahead, I think one of the toughest things to do is to convince companies that this IS a viable medium through which to market their products… There are still a TON of CEO’s and other, you know, “grown-ups” who still don’t know what YouTube is, let alone its value.
Tags: natls, kevin nalty, commercials, xlntads, slater’s garage, cga, advertising
LendingClub, a web site that facilitates peer-to-peer money lending, just completed a successful consumer-generated advertising video contest. They note a couple of interesting metrics on their blog. For example the contest garnered 18 competitors and 100,000+ views during a four-week run and with an incentive of $8,000 in prizes. It’s important to note, too, the contest received some major blog coverage today, because the valuable PR gave the site an additional ROI in addition to the marketing they used to publicize the contest across Facebook and YouTube.
Here’s a look at the winning entry. It’s pretty well made. In fact, the professional filmmaker and popular YouTuber Chris Barrett created it and won the contest on a pretty good concept. I think it could have been more tightly edited, but it did get over 17,000 views on YouTube. Slyly, or perhaps smartly, he included the attention-grabbing tag ‘Paris Hilton’. That helped. Here’s an interview with the filmmaker.
If you’d like to see the other videos that won prizes, you can watch them all here.
Tags: lendingclub, chris barrett, video, viral, advertising, cga, case study, xlntads, contests
YouTube just released it’s new custom video player! Check out some of our awesome vids people in our community have made right here and now!
We’ve just wrapped up our first contest, and it was awesome. We got lots of great submissions from people all across the country, but in the end the winner of the $5,000 Grand Prize was from right here in Philadelphia. Andy Gilligan took home the trophy for this ad he made with his friends on a micro budget (read the whole story here):
But Andy really wanted to go all out, so he went ahead and made two! We loved them both. Have a look at “Make Your Own TV”:
If you’d like to see all the contest winners, head on over to our YouTube channel. And of course, stay tuned for more. We’ve got another contest in the works right now.
Tags: andy gilligan, advertising, contest, xlntads, winner, cga, youtube, video, ads
