Case Studies
MakeAStar’s Web-to-TV Reality Competition ‘Best Original Music’
Purpose
Equal Chance Productions, a TV programming company and a music talent site www.MakeAStar.com
wanted to create the first Web-to-TV reality competition with seamless transition between web and TV. The competition was to find the best unsigned talented artist or music group in the US, giving artists an “equal chance” at fame and prizes.
Plan
Equal Chance Productions and MakeAStar together with its main sponsor TracFone, leader in prepaid cell phones, wanted to launch the first Web-to-TV reality competition called ‘Best Original Music’ with the winning prize of $10,000. To attract talented unsigned artists, they partnered with The Orchard, the world’s leading distributor of music for independent record labels and artists. To bring Web-to-TV to reality MakeAStar teamed up with Fuse TV, the national music television network, to air 13 half-hour episodes of the MakeAStar reality Web-to-TV. The competition would have contestants competing by entering their entries (music videos or webcam performances) to the MakeAStar site. The competition would be multi-phased, lasting 13 weeks, provide exposure to the independent artists both online on MakeAStar.com and on Fuse TV, but most importantly, engage the younger demographic of Fuse viewers with the TracFone brand.
Solution
Contest Factory’s patented and proven UGC competition and sweepstakes platforms provided the perfect fit to MakeAStar’s Web-to-TV reality competition. Contest Factory’s powerful and flexible technology met every one of MakeAStar’s requirements namely: competition to be in bracket format where artists would compete in bracket groups of 8 and the group winners would be showcased each week on national TV, contestants would enter their video submissions to the competition online with the option of using Contest Factory’s embedded webcam recorder, fans and celebrity judges to be able to vote online via 2 different voting paths (one for fans and one for judges.) Contest Factory also provided its in-house video production and pre/post production capabilities to produce the 13-episode Web-to-TV reality show.
Results
MakeAStar’s the Web-to-TV reality competition utilizing Contest Factory’s competition platform was a great success for the sponsor. The concept of Web-to-TV with seamless transition between the web and TV was proven with the ‘Best Original Music’ competition. It also opened up a new opportunity for Equal Chance Productions and MakeAStar to enter into negotiations with other potential sponsors for creating specific genres of the Web-to-TV reality shows that would best fit the sponsoring brands.