Poptent – crowdsourcing video productions

von | Nov. 9, 2009 | Blog, Social Media Marketing

Not sure, how new this site is, but poptent.net looks rather interesting. It’s a site for connecting brands with freelance videographers:

Poptent is the best place for independent and freelance videographers to build their portfolios, connect with companies and brands for commercial work. Here you will find the best and brightest up and coming creative minds in the business. Hire them. Collaborate with them. Join them. We’re building a crowdsourcing revolution and we want you to be a part of it. Become part of our community by clicking the JOIN NOW button.

It looks like some form of agency 2.0, and at the same time it raises the same debate that comes up when brands ask for creative submissions without guaranteeing a reward for every submission. Videocreators get the chance of having their video selected by a well known brand, yet they risk loosing their initial investment (time&money) if their video isn’t selected. And the brand gets a range of creations to choose from without having to pay for every single one.

Here is an example of a current project, asking for video content for snickers:

You know Snickers®, that unique, delicious, and substantial combination of peanuts, chocolate, caramel and nougat.
This assignment is to develop video content starring Snickers®. They are looking for either traditional ‘commercials’ or pass-along (viral) videos — original, authentic and entertaining Snickers® content which consumers will pass along, and use as inspiration for their own content creation.
Your challenge is to be creative, so don’t just follow the approach of previous Snickers® campaigns. You can either:
• Produce a fun, engaging traditional :30 second commercial
• Or produce a pass-along (viral) video of about :30 seconds in length …you choose
Your creative ‘bulls eye’ is males age 18-34. Snickers® has played a memorable role in ‘guy culture,’ with a long and celebrated history as the ‘go-to-bar’ for satisfying hunger.
You could earn $5,000 for each video they purchase or one of the $2000in guaranteed awards. Register below and read the Creative Brief for all the details and some more delicious inspiration.

$5.000 doesn’t sound like much to me, but I guess it depends on what they want to do with it.

Copy whatever works, the Germans seem to think.

von | Juli 17, 2009 | Blog, Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing

There were endless discussions in Germany about the successful  social media tactics employed during the presidential election campaign in the US. Of course these discussions also included thoughts and recommendations about how politics in Germany should make use of social media during this years election period.

I agree to the general thought, however I was mildly surprised by the blunt and uninspiring German copy of a well known video from the US. Whoever made this copy, did not even try to add their own thoughts. The only difference: this time they’re German Celebrities. The rest is the same. Here it is:

Does that look familiar? It is just like this one, isn’t it?

If this is the way forward during this year’s election, we will probably see a lot more stupid copies of the stuff in the US. I’ll keep you posted.