The Summary

Media: Photos only
Winners Chosen By: Public, Panel of VIP Judges

The Oly Awards were created by Adhack, to celebrate the best of brand advertising during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games. A Flickr group, several photowalks near the Olympic venues and a Strutta photo contest comprised the low-cost, highly interactive campaign.

The Execution

From February 12 to 28, The Oly Awards collected crowdsourced photo submissions of advertising associated with the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games (from official Olympic partners, and "unofficial" advertisers as well) on the popular photo-sharing website Flickr.

Adhack CEO James Sherrett wanted to guage the interest in the idea before proceeding with a contest. They met and exceeded the targets that they set for themselves: 50 photographers and over 500 photographs in just over a week. In the end, more than 85 photographers contributed 800+ photos of Olympic-related advertising campaigns.

The second phase involved using Strutta to determine the public and VIP panel of judges' picks for the best advertising execution at the Olympics. Marketing representative Janis Behan led several photowalks in Vancouver, and rallied photographers to submit photos.

The Adhack team also set goals for the photo contest. They wanted to have over 100 of the best photgraphs entered in the contest before the start of judging, and once again they met their targets in a very short time.

A "Pro" Strutta account was used, and Adhack provided their own design and administration.

The end of the campaign was an awards "show" featuring Behan and Sherrett:

The End Game

The contest was designed to measure a number of different metrics that are relevant to Adhack and its community. First, the level of participation around the Olympic advertising and Flickr photo group was measured and considered before proceeding with the contest. During the contest, the number of submissions, votes, comments and feedback were considered. Judges were also given an extensive evaluation form, where they rated the leading brands selected during the public voting round.

The contest was a success on several levels. Adhack community participation numbers were way up, and the Adhack concept was exposed to a large number of new creatives and ad agencies by way of the campaign. Adhack even received thanks and feedback from many of the brands they were evaluating: both official Olympic partners, as well as some of the "unofficial" advertisers as well.

The Analysis

By setting specific goals for the campaign, the Adhack outlined a plan for themselves, and stuck to it. It's important to note that the success of this campaign did not happen automatically. In a testament to the effectiveness of (properly executed) social media and online engagement, Janis rallied community members at every turn - planning photowalks, conversing on Twitter, reaching out and commenting on Flickr, and along with Sherrett publishing several blog posts and videos during the 17 day campaign.

Additionally, Adhack was anything but shy about letting people know what the campaign was about. As a footer to most of the blog posts and campaign announcements, they ran this call to action:

Want to talk about how crowdsourcing and creativity can help your brand?

AdHack works with agencies and brands big and small to put crowdsourcing to work for them.

• Call us: 1-877-477-5697
• Email us: sales@adhack.com
• Get the full AdHack contact details.

Do get in touch now and we’ll find the right fit for you.

The Numbers

To boost the awareness of Adhack among the advertising agencies working on the Olympics, the local advertisers trying to ebenfit from Games-related exposure and among creatives, Sherrett decided that by setting goals from the outset, they would drive the success of the campaign. It worked, and introduced Adhack to a number of new prospects, while garnering them plenty of online attention in the process.

Flickr photo pool of Olympic advertising: 88 members, 837 photos to date
Strutta photo contest: 115 photo entries and over 4000 unique views

The Winners

With the help of their expert panel of judges, Adhack selected an overall brand winner, as well as a "Best Photgraph" from among the submissions. Both were presented with a prize of an original piece of artwork from Vancouver artist Rachael Ashe. And the winners are:

Best Brand: Coca-Cola

Best Photograph: Kim Werker

Hudson's Bay Co. Downtown Covered in Its Own Ads - kpwerker on Flickr

If you have questions about running your own photo or video contest, contact us and we'd be happy to help you get started. 1-877-477-5717

Local news cameraman David Newcomb and his brother recently put the finishing touches on this breathtaking time lapse HD video of Vancouver. It features the song "Vancouver City" by Linda Vanzini.

Click here to buy a copy from the production team.

Take it from us, photo and video contests have become incredibly popular. At Strutta, we're proud to be responsible for some of the world's finest photo and video contests, and it is interesting for us to see which industries have been among the first to embrace the technology and services we offer.

The tourism industry is one of the first "trends" we've witnessed, with towns, cities, states and even countries employing our platform to promote their homeland.

It's no surprise either, since photos and videos are the best way to promote tourism (it's the closest you can get to actually "being" there). And the viewpoint of the public, through their lenses, is the most powerful and effective marketing message you can send out into the world.

Proving that our platform is flexible and scalable enough to accomodate all types and sizes of clients, we host all manners of tourism contests. Presently, we have the behemoth that is Tourism New Zealand's film competition, which is presently generating about 200,000 video views a day. Readers will also no doubt recall Tourism Queensland's "Best Job in the World" contest, a campaign that got the attention of the entire PR and advertising world last year (not one of ours, we're just fans).

At the local level, both Maple Ridge, BC and the tiny town of Bloomington, TN have used Strutta as well. Maple Ridge hosted photo contests, while Bloomington is looking for original video submissions to go with the new "unofficial" Bloomington song, recorded by Elizabeth Eckert.

The State of Wyoming is using Strutta for two contests consecutively; one for a Wyoming short film contest, and one for the Wyoming Rodeo.

Sunshine Village in Banff is hosting their second contest with Strutta- "Sunshine Village Rockstar" is a chance for bands to compete to be named the official band of the resort for 2010.

And of course, Tourism Vancouver has been hosting a video competition as well. There are still two weeks left to vote in that one, and it has generated some brilliant entries that reflect very well on the city.

For obvious reasons, we encourage other tourism boards to contact us to talk about how we can help with other promotions of this kind. Browse through the examples above, and click through the online tools we offer by clicking the green "Create a Contest Now" button at the top of this page.

Ok folks, there is only one week left to get in on HBC and Vancouver 2010's "Hey Canada, What Are You Made Of?" contest!  Enter now for a once in a lifetime opportunity to experience the upcoming 2010 Olympics VIP styles!

HBC and Vancouver 2010 are giving away a surreal prize (estimated value of $13,300) to one worthy winner which includes:

• Return flights for two to Vancouver, BC to experience all 2010 Olympic action!
• Three nights accommodation
• Transportation and spending money
• Two tickets to watch the Olympic gold medal men’s ice hockey game
• Two tickets for a snowboard event, chosen at the discretion of Hudson’s Bay Co.
• A package of official 2010 Canadian Olympic Team Apparel

HBC and Vancouver 2010 have made it ridiculously easy for any Canadian to enter.  All they're asking is for each entrant to consider in their submission: (a) what being Canadian means to you; (b) what makes you a great Canadian; and (c) why you would like to win a trip to the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.  They're accepting submissions in text, photo, and video.  10 entries from each medium will move forward to the judging round, so get your entry in today and push hard during the last leg using the included Share tools!

Hot tip: Most entries that have come in are text and photo.  If you enter a video, you are almost guaranteed to advance to the next round.  A little effort and you could be considered to win this amazing experience of a lifetime!  So seriously Canada, show us what are you're made of!

Time for another episode of FTW. This one features DoYourGreekDance.com and InsideVancouver.Strutta.com: