Poptent, a startup that crowdsources advertising to the public, has just launched in public beta. The site allows advertisers and brands to post requests for an ad, which are then produced and submitted by the pool of small studios and videographers that make up the site’s members. Poptent is a sister site to XLNTads (also launching today), which focuses more on the brand marketers rather than video creators.
Poptent CEO Neil Perry says that while Poptent is designed to encourage submissions from its thousands of members, it isn’t going for the “YouTube crowd”. Instead, it’s focused on catering to small but professional teams capable of producing TV-quality ads.
To participate on the site, advertisers pay Poptent a fee of around $25,000, and then post guidelines as to what they’re looking for, along with assets like company logos. Poptent members then film and submit their ads to the site. If an advertiser finds an ad they like, they can purchase it for around $5-7,500 (oftentimes they will purchase multiple ads at once).
While the process can run upwards of $30,000 for an advertiser, this only represents a fraction of what a typical TV-quality ad costs (which Perry estimates to be over $300,000). Because of these cost savings, advertisers are opened up to purchase multiple ads and can target them more effectively than one, costly ad that has to appeal to everyone.
My main concern is that as the site gains in popularity (with more hopeful ad creators), the odds of having your ad purchased will decrease. Because these small production teams are paid nothing in advance and have no guarantees, this makes creating an ad more risky. Perry says that Poptent will try to offset these issues by identifying the best filmmakers and offering them seed money, and introducing them to other advertisers who might be interested in their work.
Here’s a sample ad from one of the participating small teams:
Why be so narrow about who you let post a video. What’s the harm of letting the masses participate. These same masses are also consumers so from an advertisers perspective, having them engaged with the brand should be a positive. To think that you have to be a professional videographer to produce a compelling and effective ad is demonstrably false; some of the best spots are those that are unpolished and clearly made by “regular folks” who are enthusiastic about a given product or service.
That’s a good idea, however, most companies try to keep their upcoming ads secret before it is released for competitive reasons, so the less people who know about the new ad the better.
A public submission of possible ads may take away a companies competitive advantage.
In answer to the above comment, anyone is allowed, encouraged and welcome to take part in our assignments as long as they follow the creative brief.
poptent is not only for professional filmmakers, but for filmmakers who have a professional attitude and creativity to spare.
I agree with mr ratings. the power of generic video business promotions is very powerful and often underestimated. many times off the cuff video adds are more believable than one’s that are semi professionally designed.
AdvertisementLocator.com
And publishers benefit from this service how?
Bad business model. Don’t you think a better approach would be to allow creative talent to bid on a project by submitting portfolios of their work? There is no way I’d go pour my heart & soul into a project on the “off chance” it will be selected. Likewise, there is no way I’d put down $25k then finding that all of the submitted work is a load of crap.
Zooppa, anyone?
http://zooppa.com/
We certainly aren’t without competitors, Robin.
But I invite you to look at how our software platform and technology differ from all of them and give filmmakers value outside the ad-creation focus.
Thanks for the feature, Jason.
I’d love to follow up with some additional comments.
First, in addition to paying commercial assignments, we are looking towards fleshing out our project management capabilities and offering creators tools specifically for building up their commercial portfolio.
The focus of Poptent is building a community that has value other than as an audience of consumers, ready to suck down targeted advertising. Rather, we provide powerful tools to independent and freelance videographers, and grow a top notch community with great skills. In return, the community earns money, and we have compelling products to sell our clients: truly crowdsourced creative.
Mark – I think you’ve got an interesting idea and approach. The cost savings could be tremendous for big commercial advertisers and marketers. Even if they don’t get a great ad to use in campaigns, they can get great raw ideas and maybe even build a little bit of loyalty and passion from a very influential crowd of savvy videographers.
Why not institute a voting system to allow non-filmmaking users to drive the popularity of high-quality, uber-creative ads?
This way, you can bring the voice of the “Youtube masses” into the business process and thereby allow advertisers to more easily select ads that will tap into minds of the general public.
I presume advertisers are interested in creating ads that actually engage consumers, no?
Eh, who knows?
That’s a good idea, yes. Actually, we decided instead of a rating system, to go with the only-positive-feedback of a ‘liking’ system similar to Vimeo.
As for engagement, yes, they are. However, we aren’t simply going for mass engagement as one might, say, running a CGA contest on YouTube. Rather, we’re looking to tap into a ‘prosumer’ market where folks are actually looking for ways to make money with their video skills, and for brands who want great quality videos.
I agree with AL completely. The idea is great but something fundamentally wrong with its current business model.
I third Al’s comment. I’m not sold on the business model.
@Al @Ryan @Tique – currently, we’re using the ‘contest’ model as a way to allow anyone to break in to professional commercial work. We realize that it’s not the sustainable way that will drive us in the future, but it does allow us to generate revenue and give back to creators who do good work.
In the meantime, we’re developing a group of the highest quality filmmakers and studios that will connect to work directly. Many of our clients don’t necessarily want to go through an open assignment channel to get their creative. For these companies, we have flexible solutions that will fill their needs inexpensively and give paying commercial work directly to our loyal and quality creators.
Why would anyone produce a commercial on spec. Spec jobs kill the design/creative industry. It takes time to produce a broadcast quality commercial and if you don’t get chosen then you just wasted your time. There is a reason it costs $100K to $500K to make a commercial. Video and Sound editing, actors, lighting, music tracks, this list goes on and on. Also, Time spent in school learning how to do it the right way.
I know that the cost is getting cheaper with HD DV Cams being sold at Costco and BestBuy but, time is money. Anyone and their brother can make a movie these days with iMovie but is that what we really want as creative professionals.
Advertising costs a lot of money and unless you are right out of school and still living with mom and dad IMHO no real video editor or or producer will do a commercial on spec.
Remember, spec jobs kill the creative industry.
Thanks for your comments, Evo. We’re certainly not trying to devalue the work of professional creatives. Rather, we’re trying to open the playing field up to people in all corners of the globe who don’t have access to channels to professional work for major brands. We don’t like asking for ’spec’ work as much as anyone, and as I said above, we’re trying to solve this problem by creating contract jobs to our best and brightest members which is more than I can say about, say, YouTube.
Who’s to say what “the right way” is anymore? Isn’t the only criterion for “broadcast quality” work that it be broadcast? I’ve seen SuperBowl ads that cost millions to produce which are far less effective than cable ads that were locally-produced by guys like me… on spec. Production cost doesn’t always equal effective advertising.
I’m from a radio background, and have learned SO much about video production in my dealings with companies like XLNTAds/Poptent over the past year — not to mention how much I’ve learned about this burgeoning medium. The education alone has made it well worth the investment of time.
As far as killing the creative industry? I’m in the creative industry, and I’m not dyin’ by any stretch of the imagination. My spec work has been seen by scads of advertisers who otherwise wouldn’t have. It’s helped me develop relationships and work with clients all over the world. It’s even made me a few bucks, and led to non-spec work.
Remember: It’s not “what we want as creative professionals” that matters. It’s what the advertisers want as the guys signing the checks… And if they want to write smaller checks, now they have a place to do that. And if they want to see what I can do for them before they write me mine, I’ll be proud to show ‘em. I know they’ll like it. And if they don’t, someone else will.
CurrentTV does this…and I think they’ve got a much more formidable sales team and have been around since 2003.
From a marketing standpoint, I’m not sure why I would want to do something like this. It seems like a gamble. If you don’t like what videos get submitted, are you losing the $25k you put up front?
Most ads are likely going to be part of an IMC and I’d much prefer an agency handling this. An agency is going to work with me to find out my positioning strategy and what semantics I’m trying to get across.
It will be interesting to see what types of companies use this, what types of placement the ads end up with and how well the ads turn out.
@shoneveld: over 3500+ filmmakers in our global network of filmmakers all over the world. Perhaps we should talk ?
To
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As another option for cheap online video advertising, I would reccommend the following sites to create content under $100
- http://www.animoto.com
- http://www.adgrinder.com
- http://www.muvee.com
- http://www.jivox.com
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In regard to spec work…
Would it be acceptable for someone to expect the same from lawyers? Bear with me for a minute…
I have done something terrible, so I spill my guts to ten different lawyers. They all spend precious time (money) preparing a defense for me. Finally, after all of that, I choose just one to represent me in court and leave the other nine out in the cold. Without paying them a dime.
That’s simply unheard of. Why would I waste my time and energy on something that is merely a contest at heart?
Regardless of whether it’s a good business model for Poptent or not, the bottom line is that the content creators are being taken advantage of and seem to be unaware of it. Or if they are aware of it, they are apparently fine with it, which is even more disheartening.
Weak business model, creatives are the first to do work and last to get paid if at all, I feel sorry for the majority of this sites users who are wasting their time.
“BUT THINK OF THE RECOGNITION!”
http://www.no-spec.com/
I’m sure you guys will do fine though, but that’s because you’ll always have fresh crops of talented people who don’t realize they could do better.
Scott,
We have paid creators well over $100,000 so far and connected many with brands they otherwise would not be able to break into. It’s not about spec work at all, its about providing a (free) collaborative toolset for professional videographers. It’s a portfolio site. It’s a way to connect with large brands and show them what you are capable of. We *also* allow users to submit idea’s, drafts, finished pieces of creative directly to brands – which they may (or may not) purchase. So far our track record has been pretty good. It sounds like you may have been burned in the past by some “spec” site – but i assure you – that is not what we are trying to do.
Boston, Mass are sniths
goldie, erinn weafer