The force is strong with this one. In a galaxy not so far away, a popular snack food brand, Pringles, has joined forces with the iconic movie franchise, Star Wars, to launch a crowdsourced video contest. Themed around, “The Force For Fun,” one video will win $25,000 and a chance to be featured as Pringles national advertisement.
The contest is hosted on Tongal, a platform that facilitates creative and video content for brands through crowdsourcing. Described as a, “totally out of this world alliance,” the goal of the campaign is to take a fun, clever, and adventurous approach to crafting video content in a way that celebrates both Pringles and Star Wars. Key targets for the campaign include, “adults from 18-49, particularly those that have a past affinity for the Pringles brand and are open to rediscovering it.”
It’s worth visiting The Force For Fun contest page on Tongal to review the robust objectives, which include executional mandatories, key messages, and branding guidelines. The platform also clearly details the three step contest process, which includes a an idea stage, a pitch stage, and a video stage. During each wave, entrants are either eliminated, or selected to move on. If selected to move on, the entrants are awarded with a cash prize.
Sound involved? That’s because it is. To quote Yoda, “A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind.” This type of initiative requires a financial investment from the brand and an increased time commitment from the entrants (check out this blog entry from an entrant). As a result, Pringles was able to source serious entrants that were willing to put in the time and generate higher quality videos. Without knowing the back-end metrics, it seems to be paying off so far. According to Pringles and the Kellogg Company, the contest has generated more than a thousand fan-generated video ideas. The videos posted on the company’s YouTube page have also generated more than 900,000 views.
At present, Pringles is sharing the 30- and 60-second videos from the seven top finalists on its social media channels, with the big winner reveal planned for some time in June. The Pringles YouTube Channel has been customized to the campaign and even showcases behind-the-scenes footage from the making of the final videos. Who will take the top honors? Call this writer crazy, but it simply has to be the “Chosen One.”
