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FirefoxFlicks Winners Announced
prostoalex writes "The FirefoxFlicks competition has announced the winners of the Firefox video promo campaign. The winning videos are DareDevil, Wheee!, Fox Fever, This is Hot and Give me the the soap."
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...Only because it is the only one I ever saw, based on viral ability alone it wins
Speaking of hot flicks, I think that's a pretty good description of their server right about now.
Mozilla presumably needs all the funding they can get. Where are they getting the money to pay for a site like this?
Wheee! Almost peed my pants. Played it over and over, this is funny on many levels, reminds me of the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons, where little kids laughed, but there is an adult element that is hilarious.
As far as being effective for general advertising, I'm not sure... It may succeed on the level of getting people talking about it, "Do you GET that new Firefox commercial", or not. It's a bit of a wink and a nod to the tech demographic (taunting especially Microsoft and Netscape).
If I were making a SAFE choice for mass consumption, I'd probably go with the "Give me the Soap". Simple, mass appeal, cute, cuddly, with a clearly stated message. If I had some extra money, I'd produce and run both. If I had money to burn, I'd definitely do the Wheeee! just for fun.
Good job to all winners.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2-NZm_gYFU&search= %20DareDevil%20firefox= firefoxflicks= %20Fox%20Fever= firefox%20hot= firefox%20soap
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HC42Js7cWs&search
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W96dME1RTik&search
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CW4r5zxgDk&search
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj4pQ9Jx1Uc&search
I watched them all, and was completely underwhelmed. For one thing, they were obviously all the same. Secondly though, black text on a white background saying 'Connection to database could not be made.' just isn't funny, and doesn't make me want to use FireFox. It's also stretching the definition of 'video' too. Yes, technically it was something that was seen, and therefore video, but in common usage 'video' implies moving pictures.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Since the site is a pile of smoldering wreckage, let's talk about something else: the web. Specifically, when did you start needed a database to serve up five static files?
Discuss amongst yourselves.
Too bad Whee! was a winner. They'll have a hell of a time getting it past Nintendo now.
;)
Maybe Microsoft will hire Gill for their Xbox campaign?
1. Daredevil. What's this about? Nice editing, pretty sweet cinematography (if extremely dark due to heavy use of solar silhouetting). Nice little homily about the surfing ethic. And the kid skateboarding with the surfboard is cool too. But there's no surfing in it. There's skateboarding. Looks too cold to surf. And too dark. Confused.
2. This is hot. Predictable. I liked the touch with the fish. Too bad it didn't hold that note.
3. Wheee! Cute, but the payoff is lame. Firefox just wants to sleep? Confused again.
4. Get the Soap. Dumb. No text, sub- or otherwise, to indicate why the kids think washing gets rid of viruses and spyware. Only the soap-on-the-lens thing keeps it from being dead last. Oh, and the fact that this one could never be anything but:
5. Fox Fever. Ultra-dumb. Lame beyond words. Everything that's wrong about the vox populi artistic movement. How did this hunk of shit get out of the in-box, much less into this list?
That's muh rulin'. - Judge R. Bean
Saw them all through the Google Cache. (I can't function without the Add Mirrors Greasemonkey Script which IMHO is way better than the Slashdotter Extension.)
Anyway, I thought "This is hot" blew all the others away. High production value. Gets some of the firefox message across to a mass audience without getting buried in all the product details. Most of the others will just leave people confused.
Like Digital Freedoms? Then donate to EFF before they're gone.
I watched them and definitely Get Me The Soap is the best. The idea of washing the computer to get rid of viruses if funny, only because kids are so litereal now. If I was to see that on TV I would be kinda confused as to what firefox is, because, IMO, the average user just uses IE because they don't know about others, except maybe Netscape. The only thing I would add is on the GetFireFox.com logo @ the end put Get FireFox Interenet Browser to clarify what it is.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
Wouldn't it be far more daredevil-ish to use a browser that ISN'T Firefox???
Remember they were not aiming for a technical audience necessarily, so they picked the one they thought everyone could most relate to (in other words, instead of targeting one audience's 100% mark they figured they'd shoot for everyone's 30% mark, or whatever).
Fox Fever was too geek-funny. Most people would just find it stupid.
Wheee! was an excellent and clever submission but requires users to be familiar with browser icons (besides the big blue "e" that non-tech people have synonymized with the Internet).
You're on target about "This is hot" and the soap entry would be borderline confusing to joe sixpack.
I have afollowing concern about the name of the browser in regards to international marketing:
In Chinese and Russian folklore, fox is an cunny evil treacherous animal. Given, tech community which does not care much about it already accepted firefox, but what about the general populace (target of the commercial number 5)? Does anybody care about folklore?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
statistics of browser popularity in Russia
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Side shot of man at computer.
Switch to over the shoulder view showing a browser open to some stock website.
Zoom in to search toolbar.
Man types in "big breasts".
Pause + text: "Fast searching"
Zoom out to show new tab with search results.
Man opens several websites in the background as tabs.
Pause + text: "Tabbed browsing"
Back to side shot of man.
Voice of a woman offscreen: "Honey, I'm home."
Man looks over at doorway.
Close up of man quickly closing several tabs.
Shot of man navigating to the "clear private data" option.
Text: "Privacy"
Shot of man giving woman a kiss on the cheek.
Text: "Get Firefox"
This contest was more of a joke than the jokes in the SNL that's on right now... Here
...sorry if that was a bit confusing
They got rid of there blog(Here) after a lot of the entrants posted "comments" questioning what happened to it. Read the comments on that page to see the problems but here's a sum up of what the general story is:
Facts:
-Before I say anything about the videos this is how the contest was to be done (Herel)1) Concept (30%); 2) Production Quality (30%); 3) Script/Screenplay (20%); 4) Use of Firefox Logo, Name, or Tagline (10%); 5) Jingle or Soundtrack (10%). The winners were all in the first 20% of the videos posted. Only around 30% of the ads have been posted.
-The winner of the competition "Daredevil" was posted online Apr. 11th on the firefoxflicks.com website...the contest ended Apr. 14th. This ad incorporates ALMOST NONE of the guidelines set forth other than the fact that she actually uses a browser. (And it's a clear of the recent coca-cola and American express ads... that's more of a rumor though but you decide for yourself)
-"Wheee!" was in complete denial of the FAQ that they posted (specifically Here) that said that other logos could not be used without permission and yet there goes IE, Netscape and Safari(not to mention the TOS on those logos on there websites(which can also includes modifying the logos in any way))
-"Fox Fever" had no video production quality other than that is was trying to be cheesy which can be argued to have not fallen under the scoring system set forth by the rules.
-"This is Hot" deserved to win more than an honorable mention. It fit the "rules" set forth perfectly and has a very high production quality that (in my opinion) can take on some super bowl commercials.
-"Give Me the Soap" was cute and could fit the rules perfectly.
-It starts to appear that the actual "winners" were not exactly following the rules and guidelines of the contest and the two honorable mentions fit it perfectly (which is probably why there were 2 "honorable mentions" because there wasn't any mention that there was going to be).
Rumors:
-I'll quote myself for the first "rumor":
"the only concern I have about the judging is that the 5 winners were among the first 25% up... I'm not to good at stat but doesn't that mean the odds of that happening unintentionally (5 hits within 25%) 1 in 1024(4^5) (or one could even argue 20% (5^5: 1 in 3125))? If the first ones up were a "cross-section" as noted earlier doesn't that imply that they weren't the best of the best?
"# Asa(one of the firefoxflicks staff Says:
April 25th, 2006 at 8:16 am
cleancut, I don't think it was purely our idea of "the 50 best ones". We posted what we thought was a good cross-section of ads, from humorous to serious and everything in between. We certainly tried to launch the site and build early momentum by highlighting a set of ads that we thought would be compelling and entertaining to a broad audience.
- A
" "
-NONE of the judges ever said a word about the contest ANYWHERE. try googling one the famous "judges" names and firefoxflicks and the only page that will come up is that the list of them on firefoxflicks.com. This lead to ALOT of speculation that some of the videos (Wheeeeeeeee) were picked because of the instant popularity when they were put on the site and not by market viability (or the "rules"). Also all of the judges apparently viewed all 2.5 hours of commercials in LA over 5 days even though they are all working on movies in various parts of the world. But that's probably because the firefoxflicks team forced them to this deadline to be at the SF film fest which wasn't the original plan.
-The firefoxflicks team will never be able to use some of the ads (Wheeee