I’ve entered a lot of video contests this year, and the one sure-fire thing I see over and over again is that Rap Videos, no matter how good (I’ve seen some really good ones), almost never win a video contest.  Notice how I use the word never with almost italicized before it.

I’ll start with a BIG example first.  And by big, I mean prize money.  As in $25,000 grand prize money for the winner.  TaxSlayer.com had it’s second commercial video contest earlier this year.  There were a lot of great submissions, including this rap video I really liked.

A lot of effort went in to making this production. Everything from writing a catchy and relevant song, recording it, obtaining all the extra actors to be in the video (never easy) to the post production work with a few effects and great editing. I kind of feel bad for these guys that they didn’t win due to the effort that went in to making it.

Now contrast the production value of this rap video with the actual Winner of the 2009 Taxslayer.com video contest:

The first problem is that you’re competing with HappyJoel at his best. No offense to Joel, but he doesn’t put a whole hell of lot of work into the production value of his videos. And, he doesn’t have to. He’s got a sense of humor that will eat your production value for lunch when you catch him on a good day. So many great lines in this comedy including when he permits “Sarah” to ask her question, and the reporter’s voice barely changes an octave. And, the classic answer to the question, “How many maiden’s have you rescued?”