The thing is, there’s a lot of companies right now who I’m sure are saying to themselves “we have to get in on this viral video” thing, but who by all rights should not be.
The perfect example of this is the Psoriasis-cure-now.org video contest. Okay, they wanted a video in 2007 that was like a PSA. Fine. But this year they expanded their contest, and decided to have two separate tracks: 1 serious, and 1 “humor.”
I am going to copy and paste exactly what they wrote in their rules about the “humor” track:
(B) Humor track: Prepare a video:
(1) That uses humor in making a point that psoriasis is a serious disease that negatively impacts quality of life. Examples: your video could show that psoriasis can be physically painful; that psoriasis is not contagious; that psoriasis research merits more government funding; that millions of Americans, including Benjamin Franklin, have battled psoriasis; or anything else to help the psoriasis community educate the public about this disease or its impact on people.
It honestly reads like they have no idea what a joke is, and haven’t actually heard any jokes, they’ve just heard that jokes are the new big thing and they want in on the craze.
I was racking my brain for about 10 weeks, trying to figure out ANYTHING that could be done with these guidelines (oh, and you also have to reference the website entire, “psoriasis cure now dot org” has to be said in your video). Finally, I think I came up with something that could work:
Now, only the early bird judging is done so far, so technically I’m still in the running, but based on what they picked for the early bird one (a bunch of kids on a playground being cute and saying unfunny things) I don’t think my video has really got a chance.
On the positive side, I do think the song has a shot at going platinum on the metal charts.
PS – still time to vote for me in the klondike contest (register, search “happyjoel” in the watch section and rate each video a 5)