Poptent is our new community site where brands and independent video creators connect.
Just a friendly reminder to get out there and shoot some video of one of the heros you know and get it to our site soon! The Net10 No Evil assignment is ending this weekend. Get your hero’s story in by March 15th for the chance to sell your video for $5000 or get awarded 6 months of free cell phone service!
We’ve got a bunch of good ones in already, but will yours be better?
Tags: news, xlntads, net10, advertising, video
[note: this is a message from Neil Perry, our acting CEO]
Amazing! And that’s not me, that word came straight from the client.
That’s been the consistent comment from our marketing brethren at Nestle’s 100 Grand Bar, from Unilever’s Slim-Fast team, and from the ZorbEEZ group at Vertical Branding.
Amazing.
We’ve been working closely with our marketing partners at these three companies to select the ads they’d like to move forward with, and to award any prizes that were featured. But please be patient.
Clearly, we caught these unsuspecting marketers by surprise with the high quality, incredible production values, wonderful scripting and acting, and generally, by producing some damn fine creative.
Because of this great creative achievement, all three marketers are actively engaged in re-looking at their original plan and are considering bigger and better ways of utilizing your fine work. But that takes time, and corporate work can move painfully slowly at times.
It’s important for you know that those of us at XLNTads are engaged on a daily basis with these companies, reviewing the creative, making recommendations, and considering a broad spectrum of approaches to get as much of your creative product purchased and used as feasible.
I will keep you posted as the process continues. My compliments on some outstanding videos.
Without further ado, I’d like to announce one of our most amazing assignments yet. Bud Light! You’ve seen these spots before, right?
I bet you can think of funny ‘dude!’ scenarios of your own. Well get out there and film ‘em! We’re going to have a short run at this one because Bud wants to get these vids up in time for March Madness (heck yeah!). The deadline is only 4 weeks away! We’re offering $5000 a pop to the best 3 (at the very least).
Tags: advertising, bud light, beer, funny, dude, xlntads, video, ugc, cga
It’s about that time again, folks. The most fun part of our jobs, giving away money! *drum roll, please*
And the Grand Prize winner of $1500 for Best Amazing Pitch goes to:
Flash Mob by BeauChevassus
Congratulations, Beau! We love the concept and think your idea would make a pretty awesome and creative web series.
Five videos were chosen as Runners Up. Each of these videomakers are getting a brand new Sanyo Xacti E1 or $500 for their efforts. Congratulations, everyone! They are (in no particular order):
It was so hard to just pick out 6 winners, so we do want to mention a few others that we loved. Here are 5 more videos that we will be taking with us to Broadband Enterprises to attempt some dealmaking. Congratulations to all you Honorable Mentions!
Tags: video, webisodes, winners, contest, xlntads, amazing pitch
We’re almost done with our chocolate and caramel induced snack attack, er, I mean commercial assignment. Have you uploaded your video yet? If not, we hope to see it in the mix soon. We’re pushing 100+ entries already and so many of them are great! Have a look yourself!
We’re accepting videos through the weekend, but we’re definitely cutting it off on Monday morning at 9am (February 18).
Also, if you’ve already done the 100 Grand assignment and you’re looking for something else to do, have a look at our newest one out the gate: Net10 No Evil. We think you’ll like it, and it’ll really put your filmmaking skills to the test. Good luck!
Tags: video, advertising, 100 grand, xlntads, news, deadline
Today is the deadline for The Amazing Pitch II and we’d love to see your series pilot in on the action! We have some awesome entries already, but you still have a few hours to get yours uploaded.
We’re giving away $1500 to the best video, and $500 to 5 runners-up. But more importantly, we’ll be optioning the best submissions and taking them around to our many brand partners and working deals to get your show sponsored. You could get $30,000 to develop a 6-part series!
While you’re thinking about how to polish up those final edits, I’ll leave you with a pretty wild success story I’ve been reading about today thanks to a tip from Steve Bryant at Reel Pop. Three young guys in New York made a no-budget video series last year in their apartment called “We Need Girlfriends“. After millions of views, thousands of fans and a handful of YouTube and MySpaceTV front page features, their show got bought by CBS in a development deal. Wow!
The New York Times just published a pretty cool backstory about how these guys made their show successful. It’s a fantastic read. If you’re looking for some inspiration, this is it! Here, watch the first episode:
Tags: amazing pitch, xlntads, video, series, we need girlfriends, sponsorship
[click to watch at no-evil.net]
This is one of the short films made for Net10’s No Evil Campaign. Our latest assignment at XLNTads is to follow Net10’s lead and find heros in your world. We want you to make a mini-documentary about them, similar this this video, and upload it to our site for your chance to earn some money for your work.
We’re excited and proud to be partnering up with Net10 - they’ve got a great phone service and a fantastic ad campaign. I’m sure lots of the videos you make will have a great positive impact, and add valuable short films to your portfolio. I can’t wait to see the stories you tell.
If you have some extra time, check out their ‘evil’ videos, too. Awesomeness!
Tags: advertising, net10, phones, heros, video, xlntads, news
[photo: RichardAM in honor of Lego's 50th Birthday!]
We’re extending our deadlines for Slim-Fast and ZorbEEZ through Monday, February 4th, 9a.m. EST. We realize that you might want an extra weekend to wrap up your videos and maybe polish up the edit. Remember, follow the Creative Brief and you can’t go wrong. Get those messages across creatively, but to the point.
Email us if you have questions! Or check out our handy-dandy new FAQ section.
Tags: video, advertising, slim-fast, zorbeez, xlntads
We’re coming down to the wire, folks! These are the last few days to get those Slim-Fast and ZorbEEZ videos onto our site for your chance at a big payday and major brand exposure to your creative work. The deadline for both assignments is midnight Thursday, January 31st, 2008.
If you’ve already uploaded, awesome, thanks! There are tons of funny, quality videos already in. Go check out them out and give them your rating. Can’t wait to see some more of your great work.
Also, stay tuned here to the blog (remember, you can subscribe free and have these posts delivered to you by email). We’re about to announce our next big assignments! They’re BIG!
Tags: news, xlntads, zorbeez, slim-fast, advertising, cga, video
[Note: this is an excerpt from Neil's article in iMedia Connection. Click through to read the whole piece.]
What’s New in UGC
Broader definition of content. Brands are looking at the channel more and more as an alternative method of getting not only TV commercials, but also 15-second online spots, one- to two-minute webisodes and any other kind of online content.
The rise of support structures. Third parties have emerged and can serve as a trusted partner to help connect brands and agencies with talented, qualified pools of creators to best fit the needs of the campaign. This can reduce UGC “waste” — video submissions that are not appropriate to the brand messaging or the constraints of the campaign.
The birth of “prosumer” communities. Consumers like UGC and are getting better and better at creating content. Videography is a vastly growing hobby. Editing and filming equipment and software have vastly improved and enabled many more creative people to participate. Extraordinary talent is emerging in unexpected places across the country. In addition, more sites have come to the scene devoted to ad creation (e.g., vidopp.com), and online video watching continues to grow in popularity.
Increased disenchantment with conventional marketing. Consumers are even more skeptical of traditional advertising and are looking for “authentic” content via word of mouth and UGC. In fact, a recent Nielsen Media Research survey indicates that 78 percent of consumers place the most confidence in recommendations from other consumers over any form of traditional advertising.
Heads up, everyone! We’ve just added a new Frequently Asked Questions Section for all things XLNTads. If you have a question, check out the FAQ or use the search field on the right sidebar. If you have any suggestions for making it better or you have pressing questions that we haven’t addressed, please feel free to email me - mark [at] xlntads [dot] com. I’ll add it.
Here’s that link to the FAQ Section again.
Thanks!
We’re so proud! Famous ad critic Bob Garfield featured one of our amazing creators, MuggleSam in a new article about XLNTads. Sam made a really great video for our client Slim-Fast, and Mr. Garfield agrees. He calls her spot “extremely interesting on a variety of scores and also pretty damn good.” Wow!
We were lucky enough to meet MuggleSam in person way back at the 07/07/07 YouTube Meetup in New York, where she first learned about us. I can tell ya, she’s awesome! She has a very popular YouTube channel (subscribe!), a beautiful and talented daughter and a super attitude about making video. We’re so happy to see her get this wonderful recognition for her work. And we’re even happier that she’s an XLNTads creator! Here’s a look at her spot:
Don’t forget, you’ve got until January 31st to try your hand at making a viral video for Slim-Fast. Get shootin’!
Tags: mugglesam, bob garfield, ad age, video, advertising, xlntads
Our friend Douglas Ireland at VidOpp.com, the excellent blog all-things-video-contest, wrote a fantastic wrap-up of the state of video contests in 2007, tallying money awared to creators through ‘consumer-generated video’ initiatives and giving some insights into the future of the business. We’re glad to see it looks like branded user-generated content is on the rise!
Of course, we’re honored that he featured us in the post! Here’s a quote:
XLNTads.com is one of a new breed of website offering turnkey solutions connecting brand marketers with the emerging community of talented videographers with a platform of supporting infrastructure. They charge clients a fee for hosting contests, and clients pay videographers directly for high quality ads. According to Tony Romeo, SVP and Brand Liaison at XLNTads, “clients see our initiatives as part of an overall marketing campaign.” Specializing in attracting talented amateurs, students and semi-pros, rather than ordinary consumers, XLNTads contests “are meant to produce real advertising, not simply PR,” states Romeo. They hold contests open for 45-60 days and attract 50-100 video submissions per assignment. “10-20% of submissions to our assignments are top quality . . . the creativity is often amazing.”
Tags: video, advertising, contests, cga, xlntads, news, money, 2007
[A message to our community from Neil Perry, acting CEO at XLNTads]
I pushed Mark aside for a change so that I could to fill you in our progress with the outstanding creative many of you submitted as part of our Amazing Pitch webisode development plan. We received, as Mark would say, some totally awesome webisode trailers and pilots in our first go round.
As you may recall, we partnered up with Broadband Enterprises to help get these tremendous show ideas presented to major brands and ad agencies. We hosted a large number of top ad agencies at a big conference in December where your work was shown on big screen home theatres while the BE sales team joined us in pitching your work for selection.
The sales process continues, and we hope to have some good news to announce soon. Since this is a relatively new advertising approach for many brands and agencies, it’s taking a while to deliver the sale, but we remain confident based on the feedback we’ve been getting.
Broadband Enterprises has some great news of their own (they just raised $10 million in funding to grow their company!) which should help them build their business while they find webisode contracts for our creators.
In February, the XLNTads team will be attending a four-day conference in Florida with over 140 marketers representing the top 100 companies in the U.S. We’ll be sharing details on our webisode opportunity, and also presenting the best shows from both Amazing Pitch I and Amazing Pitch II.
You folks have done a fabulous job with the webisode initiative. My compliments to all of you. You still have until February 7th to get us your best pilot episode or trailer for a chance at that $30,000 production budget!
Tags: news, xlntads, broadband enterprises, amazing pitch, webisodes, video, advertising
We’re working hard at at signing up new clients to fire up assignments for our community members to flex their creative muscle! Some great (official) news is coming very soon! In the meantime, allow me to entertain you with these great oldies as a way of hinting around about who we just signed with for our next assignment!
[Thanks for sharing those videos, Brandy!]
Tags: creativity, phone, commercials, video, advertising, news, funny
