The American Idol 2011 has now found a unique way to celebrate their decade-long milestone. How? Potential contestants that go unnoticed can now find a way to reach the judges.

Idol contestants within the age limit of 15-28 can now sing for the auditions and upload those videos on the famous MySpace site. The video audition can last for a maximum duration of 40 seconds. The songs to sing can be selected from an existing song list. Each contestant can upload a single video as an entry to the auditions. The auditions will later be judged on the same lines as the live auditions. A selected few will then receive invitations to Los Angeles to take things further.

Following is the selected song list –

•    Ain’t No Sunshine – Bill Weathers

•    Kiss a Girl – Keith Urban

•    Copacabana – Barry Manilow

The MySpace audition page will hold a special gallery that consists of all the video audition highlights which can be viewed by millions of fans.

As for the judges, a confirmation of Simon Cowell, Kara DioGuardi and Ellen DeGeneres discontinuing has already been made final.

With singing auditions been taken to the online arena, fans and contestants are in for a treat. A true winner for all!

IAmAGenius’ monthly winners are showcased on the ‘Hall of Genius’ section within the website and every participant that passes level 1 has the chance to become the member of a parallel digital world called ‘Digital Geniuses’. Launched on the 26th of September 2009, the digital world received close to 4000 hits a day and is meant specifically for the quiz contestants. When asked about the purpose behind the website, Dhananjay said, “Imagine how it would be if the able, interested, intelligent and knowledgeable like minded souls get to interact with one another freely. It would definitely make a world of a difference to the real world that we live in. Thekkiam and Digital Geniuses would definitely help bring this above said community closer to one another. This site helps one send & receive mails within the community, create and join Groups and Companies, make friends, Blog, 2weet, Advertise, inform events, hold their thoughts etc., – all under one roof. Also, DeeGees (digital money earned through ‘IAmAGenius’ contests) helps one determine their strength in the community.”

Dhananjay works as an online consultant for an advertising agency in Chennai and a BPO at Bangalore. Over the years the 40 year old Civil Engineer has worked in varied advertising fields (Mainline, Direct Marketing, Outdoors and Online) gaining expertise in Oracle 8.0, C, C++, Java, JavaScript, VB, ASP, XML, Adobe and Macromedia software. Both Thekkiam and Digital Geniuses are an independent project with merely designing duties being outsourced. As far as monetization goes he mentioned, “Presently, all the expenses for the sites have been borne by me as I’m able to afford my personal expenses and also the managing of the sites, I do not plan to monetize if this continues. But in due course, if the site expands and it grows beyond what I could afford, I might think of monetizing” Meanwhile the ‘one man workforce’ continues to develop newer projects ‘Parallel Time Zones’ and ‘Many More Lives’, both of which we will be looking forward to eagerly.

The tournament focuses on bringing together 150 teams from 35 colleges, 35 schools and 20 apartment complexes in Bengaluru with an aim to propagate Basketball and Volleyball. In the larger scheme of things; the Indian Regional League aims to cover over 20 cities in India, eventually forming a sports ranking system for serious school and college level participants. Prashant Pitti, CEO and co-Founder, Indiakhelo.com said, “We want to give serious players a platform to take their sport to the next logical level by sharing our sporting knowledge and network and giving them access to our resources through the IRL event and make it a continuous process post the event through Indiakhelo.com”

CommonFloor.com, co-organizers of the tournament will take this opportunity to propagate local apartment/residential complex teams on this unique platform. Sumit Jain, co-Founder, Commonfloor.com said, “Our association with the IRL is a win-win situation for apartment teams to move on from gully-sports and play in the highest competitive form and the most authentic professional setting. Moreover, it is yet another opportunity to reaffirm the community spirit that we stand for.”

Taking to the digital medium in a bid to create brand awareness, TATA DOCOMO devised an interesting contest that extended its talk time ideologies to the next most frequented means of communication; social networks. The Dietalk contest was a 14 day activity that encouraged participants to engage in ‘diet talk’ (updating your status with a maximum of 15 characters including spaces) on various social networks like Twitter, Orkut, Facebook, Yahoo! Messenger and Gtalk. The contest commenced on October 19th 2009 and participants stood a chance to win either an Acer E101 Winmo handset or an iPod Touch 8GB, with new winners everyday! A jury was set-up to pick 1000 random participants that engaged in ‘dietalk’ on a daily basis, of which two winners walked away with either the Acer E101 or the iPod Touch.

By engaging participants in seemingly routine tasks and adding a daily incentive to the same, the brand was able to rake up an astonishing number of participants making it a successful online campaign. Such was the outcome of the campaign that the ‘dietalk contest’ is running for the ‘Best Brand Use of Facebook’ category at the Mashable Open Web awards.

The campaign revolves around three ads directed by Zubin Driver, CEO, Cell18. These adverts aim at creating brand awareness as well as promoting communication with the specified TG as each video showcases an actor speaking with the youth.

The ‘Pepsi – What’s Your Way’ campaign urges participants to suggest a whacky yet apt response to the tricky situations each celebrity is facing. Each response captures four basic fields of user information: First/Last name, Email ID and Mobile number. The best responses are featured in a ‘Top 10 Ways!’ section and all participants are vying for the chance to win prizes such as mobile top ups, a month’s free supply of Pepsi and the grand prize which will feature four winner’s photos printed on limited edition Pepsi My Cans. The programme is valid until the 20th of December 2009. For more details on the campaign log on to http://www.youngistaan.com

So, are you experienced?

The promotion is open to Indian companies that generate between Rs20 to Rs200 crores as a yearly turnover with at least 20% of it coming in from exports. Entrants need to divulge basic details such as their name, company name and a ‘FedEx International Air Waybill Number’ of shipments sent in between October 25th 2009 and January 7th 2010.

Judge me if I am weak, judge me if I am strong

A jury appointed by the Times of India Group will shortlist 10 companies based on their efficiency, innovation and export growth. Short listed entrants will receive a mentoring session with industry/opinion leaders, while the top three companies get featured on ET NOW and the highest scorer receives a free business consultation.

Directi aims at exploring the vast user experience and visual designers in turn creating a community of professionals and students. The website would host a series of competitions and the first task is to design the DesignChef logo and UX. The winner gets Rs. 20 000 followed by Rs. 10 000 and Rs. 5 000. Totally there are six prizes up for grab.

The judges are:
Anirudha Joshi (Associate Professor, IDC, IIT Bombay)
Ninad Raval (User Experience Manager, Directi)
Shailendra Salekar (Senior Graphic Designer, Directi)
Amit Klien (Product Manager, Directi)

While urging people to be a part of the ‘world’s largest online collaborated jigsaw challenge’ Lipton subtly propagates its Yellow Label Tea. The last time I saw there were 36503 members logged in. The ten top scorers will qualify to be part of the final jigsaw which is set to break a world record.

The attempt seems massive and is a unique way to engage users with your brand.

The contest is in a regular Q&A format. Nothing out-of-the-box. They have silly questions like ‘how many runs do you score in a boundary?’ or ‘what is Dhoni’s pet name?’. Well it surely looks like a database building exercise and promotional jig.

Though there have been many online contest initiated for the IPL 2009 I really do not see any exceptional work. Everyone is following the Q&A route and I guess even users need a change.

Orbit even introduced special IPL team branded packs which look really attractive.

The Oil major has tied-up with Kings XI Punjab for the contest which is a no-brainer; in fact it’s all about your luck. After registering you will have a screen full of Gulf Oil logos rapidly parading in varied directions. You simply need to click on one of them.

If you end up with a golden ball you literally win a 18k golden ball. And if you get a blue ball you end up with free merchandise from Kings XI Punjab. But in case you end up with a white ball you lose.

The only thing that got me pondering is the URL used to host the contest. It has an extensive URL and does not create recall. In fact the creative agency should have booked a sperate URL and hosted a microsite. I guess they are banking on their PPC and banner campaign to drive users to the contest.

The contest is designed by Atul Hegde headed digital marketing company Ignitee (previously known as Connecturf). The re-branding of Connecturf as Ignitee happened at the end of last year. While the revamp Atul Hegde took over as the CEO while founder V Ramani continues as Vice-chairman and MD.

If you are online advertising junkie you would notice that there has been no significant online campaigns or properties launched / designed by Ignitee. Though they have a vast clientele I think it is high time they create matchless online properties and solutions as the agency was a creative hot-shop in its initial years. Lets hope Atul Hegde works his magic!