Behind the Buzz - digital and interactive advertising and marketing

Colgate MaxFresh Video Music Competition

by Rachel on March 28th, 2008

There’s another ’submit your video’ competition, this time for Colgate’s MaxFresh, which seems to be toothpaste with breath freshener mixed in (I’m not up on trends in toothpaste, I still use the one I grew up).

(picture courtesy of Colgate-Palmolive)

The competition has a simple premise:

• Pick your song from the list of 15 songs they allow. The MySpace profile then plays the music with sing-along-a-lyrics on the screen.
• Film yourself singing along and submit the video before Apr 14. No one else can join in, no other music can be played, there can be nothing else in the background, including pictures, posters, anything that may just possibly have an iota of copyright. This of course, is an indication of how stupid copyright law can be, nothing to do with Colgate except how their lawyers interpret the risk in the litigious country that is the US. (minirant over). There’s also a ban any manipulation of the sound track, it has to be your voice and your voice only.
• Get your friends to vote for the song. You’ve got 12 days to get as many votes as you can. The top 5 will then be reviewed and assessed by Bryan-Michael Cox, Tito El Bambino, Latin Singer/songwriter and Danyel Smith, author. This is slightly different to a lot of these, which generally have a panel assess the top 5/10/whatever and then put it to the vote.
• Another thing that is different is their attitude to the videos you load up. Instead of getting the full right to the video, they are only asking for a licence to publish it worldwide. You get to keep the copyright of the performance this time, which is unusual but a step in the right direction
• The final winner gets to record a song with award-winning producer Bryan-Michael Cox (he’ll write it), record a video AND perform at Jingle Ball All Access Lounge, a HOT party as they say

In the Press Release, Bryan is said to have said (because I’ve never seen a release that has real quotes in, they’re almost always rewitten):

“Standing out in the industry is an incredibly difficult task. I decided to partner with Colgate® Max Fresh® because the contest gives us a way to find fresh new talent from across the country and the online entry makes it easy for the contestants to share an audition video with a wide audience. It’s the first time I’ve ever written a song without knowing who will end up singing it. That creates an element of excitement for me in addition to finding a fresh voice.”

(picture courtesy/copyright Bryan-Michael Cox)

The profile has been there for a while and collecting friends, which mean they have a good base from which to spread the word. It looks like they are getting new ones quickly as well, as I saw a increase of a few hundred, the comments are pretty active as well. It seems Colgate have a hit on their hands here, tapping into the desire for fame and fortune. From a marketing perspective these contests are easy to do but hard to do well. The team behind the push of this contest seem to be doing all the right things, including the outreach email that I got where I know they’d read some of the blog at lest ;) It’s getting momentum on MySpace, with people spreading it to their friends - I think MySpace is a far better platform for this kind of contest than YouTube, where the audience are not necessarily into music and can be a lot more, err, juvenile could be the right word. It looks like this one has cut through the muddle and could be a good contest.

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POSTED IN: Buzz Marketing, Competition, Entertainment Marketing, User Generated Content, Video Content, Viral Marketing