In case you were not aware, Vh1’s Behind th Music is making a triumphant return. So I couldn’t help but document a contest I have had a part in promoting at work, that has involved music and YouTube.
[Disclaimer Alert: I work for Humana, a Fortune 100 Health Insurance Company, in their Innovation Center. We're trying to make fun healthy instead of the other way around... That being said, the following gratuitous plugging of a project I played a role in is all mine. The opinions in this post do not, in any way, represent the opinions of my employer]
If you’re looking for some juicy gossip, then you may be disappointed. But I will do my best to embellish as many inconsequential details as possible throughout the post.
Deal?
Behind the Insert Coin Contest
My involvement with the Insert Coin Healthy Game Idea Contest started back in April, or so, where I was tasked to come up with a social media strategy for a contest that would have students and game enthusiasts submit game ideas in exchange for a chance at some prize money, and possible publishing royalties.
The idea was to make the contest accessible to regular gamers and not just people with experience designing games…
You can check out contest information here, if you’re interested. It’s not too late to be considered for prizes.
So I went to work brainstorming with my colleagues, and after many rounds of creativity we settled on trying our hands at producing social media in the form of YouTube videos, some blog posts and tweets to get people excited and talking.
Some of us have established pretty cool social graphs for ourselves, with some outrageously cool people mind you, so we figured that we’d learn a lot about social promotion through this process. Unfortunately I don’t have any official numbers to release here, but anecdotally, I know that the social team has been happy with the results we have been able to attain thus far.
As a sidenote, this experience has really hammered home the adage that I’ve heard Chris Brogan state on occasion: On-line you need to be interested to be interesting...
Take that to heart.
The Videos
If you watch all the videos, you’ll notice that there really isn’t a connection between the contest and each video itself until the credits at the end. This was intentional, and so far I think that the results have been all right.
Also you may notice a particular guy in all three videos. That’s Naimul, a super talented story teller, video producer and editor who I get to work with on a daily basis. The team basically let him run with everything from concept to post production, and I think he did a great job.
He deserves all the credit. :)
8 bit Style – Video One is an original music video about losing life(s) in a game. I donated my dance moves and the fat gold chain seen throughout the video.
Link: The Later Years – Video Two was inspired by the awesome Street Fighter: The Later Years webisodes. It turns out that Patrick, who plays Link, had resigned from Humana to chase his dreams of acting for a couple of years, which I think is totally cool.
Mario Brothers Stop (Motion) – Video Three was just released this weekend and I dig the end result, possibly because I’m still a fan of Max Headroom. Naimul locked himself in his apartment all last week to put it together.
What Do You Think?
So there you have it. I’m interested to read your thoughts on the contest, and on some of the behind the scenes details around the contest. Is this stuff interesting to you? Please let me know in the comments below.
There are many Chris Hall's in this world. This one blogs and tweets under the code name: hallicious.
