How cool is it when you have a product or service that lends itself to people shooting videos for you! As a marketer or business owner, how amazing is it when people are eager to spread your ideas and share stories for you.
One of my favorite examples is Queensland Australia's Best Job in the World contest which generated 30,000 videos submitted by people all over the world.
I recently spoke with Jon Slaughter, Marketing Director at Boreal Mountain Resort near Lake Tahoe about how he worked with young filmmakers to create and post videos of competitors at the Jibassic Pro Invitational ski and snowboard competitions. Jon set up a video contest that also got people talking up skiing and snowboarding early in the 2009-2010 season driving people to the resort.
Team Moment Skis won the contest. Direct link to their entry here.
Here's how Jon set up the contest:
Fifteen teams signed up to film the JPi.5 weekend and after filming had just 36 hours to create their video edit and post to Vimeo. The videos were also embedded onto the Boreal Blog.
After a ten-day judging period the winners were announced during a follow-up "Red Carpet" awards party. The winner walked home with $2,000 provided by FUEL TV and the most viewed video won $500 from Boreal.
Here are some of the metrics from this contest:
- The Video Contest was only promoted via the web (website, blog Facebook, MySpace, newschoolers.com, snowboard-mag.com) at $0 cost
- Team registration opened at 6pm on October 1, 2009. 45 seconds later the 15 spots were filled.
- Over a ten-day period the 15 videos were viewed over 72,000 times
- Teams were promoting their video (and Boreal too) via twitter, Facebook and other social and industry sites in hopes of winning the $500 prize.
Check out more about the contest, the Red Carpet awards and view the other winners on the Boreal blog.
"Hosting the video contest was a new and exciting adventure for the marketing team here at Boreal," Jon says. "The biggest benefit we saw was the kids out 'hustling' their own videos and in-turn getting thousands of views each. One team, bHappy Films, was able to get their video posted on Transworld Snowboarding's website, which has been a white whale for my marketing efforts. bHappy's video received about 3,000 views with-in a few hours after getting posted on Transworld. The video contest showcased what Boreal has to offer early season and presented it to a previously unreached audience."
What a great way to get people interested in skiing and snowboarding early in the 2009-2010 season!
Have you run a video contest? Do you have other ways to encourage video sharing?
Disclosure: Earlier this year, I delivered a presentation to executive management and marketing staff from Powdr Corporation, owners of Boreal Mountain Resort.
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