The amazing thing about this video is that the statement McCain made — not remembering how many houses he owns! — was yesterday. And here’s the ad. Sleep, for now, is out of the question.
If you don’t think “somethin’ is happening here” have a look at this. (By the way, can your organization turn an event into an inspiring event video in 24 hours? Make it relevant and people will pay attention.)
The MoveOn.org Obama in 30 Seconds video contest has a winner. To refresh your memory, MoveOn asked it’s 3 million+ members to make a 30-second campaign commercial for Obama. It had to be positive.
They received over 1,000 entries. Their members and the general public voted on the finalists, more than 5 million votes. And a panel of judges picked the overall winner.
The Obama campaign has already responded to the gas tax issue with a new ad. What’s amazing is how short the cycle for new creative has become. Can your organization produce something new in two days?
MoveOn has to be running what could be called the most successful video contest ever — if the measurement is participation.
Their Obama in 30 Seconds contest invited people to make a 30-second spot, positive only, to help elect Barack Obama. They got over 1,000 entries, which is great. But they are, as of this writing, rapidly approaching 4 million votes to the contest. Now, there are many YouTube videos with millions or views, but in this contest each person has to vote for each video in three categories, so this is a higher level of engagement.
The whole thing is set-up beautifully. They are using Amazon S3 to host the video in their own player. They made the embed code available as well as a permalink. They require votes (out of 5 stars) in three categories, Positive Message, Originality, Overall Impact. They serve up the videos in a random order to make sure every video will get lots of votes.
Now, if success is electing Obama we don’t know how effective it is yet. But it shows the video contest is here to stay and making high quality media is easier than ever.
The quality of the videos varies greatly. Here’s a nice one I saw, but then because of the random serving I couldn’t find it again on the MoveOn site, but found it on YouTube:
Barack Obama just gave a really thoughtful speech on race in America. You can read the transcript here or see the video below. What I hope it will do is start a conversation we often don’t have in this country about race and what it means to be American.
MoveOn is inviting the public to make a commercial on behalf of Barack Obama. They are inviting the public to make a spot and then the winner will get a national airing of their spot as well as $20,000 in video equipment. Nice. This is just the latest example on having your community create content for you. $20,000 is a low budget for a single professionally produced spot. It is nothing at all compared to the likely hundreds of entries they will get as well as the PR value of the whole thing.
Here are the details:
MoveOn.org has a message for all filmmakers, writers, directors, actors, editors, composers, graphic artists, and animators: Whether you’re a total amateur or a total pro, now is the time to use your creativity to help Barack Obama win. We’re launching an ad contest: “Obama in 30 Seconds.”
Powered by grassroots enthusiasm, Obama has won the most states and the most delegates. But the race isn’t over, and we’ve got to pull out all the stops to help him across the finish line.
We’re counting on you to make amazing ads in the next three weeks. Then, MoveOn members and the public will rate the ads, and a panel of top artists, netroots heroes, and filmmaking professionals will pick the winner from among top ads. We’ll air the winning ad nationally, and the winner will receive a gift certificate for $20,000 in video equipment.
