With the objective of attracting even more techies to Intelligence, CBC Television has launched a social media contest that invites contestants to create 30- and 60-second ads using clips and music from the show. Users can also incorporate their own content into the trailers (although they’re warned about copyright infringement).
The creative team behind Intelligence – Vancouver-based Watcher Films – teamed up with Eyespot.com, based in San Diego, California, for the contest. Although the effort is being driven primarily by the production company, CBC is backing it as a great idea for reaching out to tech-savvy audiences.
Each week, the Intelligence creative team will comb the Eyespot.com video mash-up contest entries for a favourite and post it at www.cbc.ca/intelligence. When the season finale hits the air on Jan. 30, 2007, a grand prize winner will be chosen along with two honourable mentions. The winner gets the Apple MacBook Pro with Apple’s Final Cut Studio, while the runners-up get iPods.
So far, the Intelligence Mashup Promo group on Eyespot.com features 186 entries. Dubbed by some bloggers as ‘YouTube 2.0,’ Eyespot.com (launched April 2006) allows users to mix media and share it via websites, email, mobile phones or other portable gizmos.
Intelligence airs Tuesdays at 9 pm and midnight and Fridays at 11 pm. Since it premiered in September, the show has averaged about 327,000 viewers.
