"Worst Case Scenario" Mobile Video Contest
Submitted by Pocketcine on January 30, 2007 - 10:21pm.
As part of our commitment to promote viral video among cultural partners, Pocketcine has been running two contests that encourage artists to explore the new medium of short format video on cell phones and submit their videos for judging to win prizes and recognition. A mobile video contest we are running with our partner Renderosity.com begins Feb. 1, 2007. We will be writing about that contest in a subsequent blog. The contest that is just ending is called, “Worst Case Scenario Viral Video Contest.” It has been running in bookstores across Canada.
The contest is a joint collaboration between our company and the Canadian publisher and book distributor Raincoast Books. The contest is based on the bestselling “Worst Case Scenario Survival Guide” book series.
The books provide a “tongue-in-cheek” guide to surviving such disasters as jumping out of a window into a dumpster and “How to Survive If You Wake Up Beside Somebody And You Do Not Know Their Name.”
The project was conceived early last year. Monique Trottier, the Internet Marketing Manager at Raincoast I worked with on the project, gave me a list of books as possible candidates for the contest. When I saw that they were the distributor of the WCS series, I jumped on it. It was the perfect subject matter for short, edgy and humourous viral videos.
After a long negotiation with the holder of the rights to the series, we marketed the series to the Raincoast sales team to motivate them to sell the idea to the trade. Bookstores would have to run displays and shelf talkers in their stores and commit to stocking a certain quantity of books. They had to make a serious commitment to the contest.
As part of our promotional materials, we produced this short “mobile video ad”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znY3hPlxgWA
Pocketcine built a contest engine to process submissions. First prize was a $500 shopping spree at a participating bookstore.
Monique Trottier’s hard work and savvy sales skills helped make the uptake by the trade successful, and the short mobile ad was a valuable tool for showing people what we were talking about.
How successful was the sales to the trade? When I first asked Monique what she expected in terms of trade interest, she said she was hoping for 20 stores, but she would be happy if 10 ran the contest.
When the number of stores reached 66, Monique wrote to tell me that it had become the most successful contest in Raincoast history in terms of trade take up. The final numbers? At last count 92 bookstores across Canada participated in the contest.
The contest is a joint collaboration between our company and the Canadian publisher and book distributor Raincoast Books. The contest is based on the bestselling “Worst Case Scenario Survival Guide” book series.
The books provide a “tongue-in-cheek” guide to surviving such disasters as jumping out of a window into a dumpster and “How to Survive If You Wake Up Beside Somebody And You Do Not Know Their Name.”
The project was conceived early last year. Monique Trottier, the Internet Marketing Manager at Raincoast I worked with on the project, gave me a list of books as possible candidates for the contest. When I saw that they were the distributor of the WCS series, I jumped on it. It was the perfect subject matter for short, edgy and humourous viral videos.
After a long negotiation with the holder of the rights to the series, we marketed the series to the Raincoast sales team to motivate them to sell the idea to the trade. Bookstores would have to run displays and shelf talkers in their stores and commit to stocking a certain quantity of books. They had to make a serious commitment to the contest.
As part of our promotional materials, we produced this short “mobile video ad”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znY3hPlxgWA
Pocketcine built a contest engine to process submissions. First prize was a $500 shopping spree at a participating bookstore.
Monique Trottier’s hard work and savvy sales skills helped make the uptake by the trade successful, and the short mobile ad was a valuable tool for showing people what we were talking about.
How successful was the sales to the trade? When I first asked Monique what she expected in terms of trade interest, she said she was hoping for 20 stores, but she would be happy if 10 ran the contest.
When the number of stores reached 66, Monique wrote to tell me that it had become the most successful contest in Raincoast history in terms of trade take up. The final numbers? At last count 92 bookstores across Canada participated in the contest.
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