THEIR FIRST YOUTUBE "MELTDOWN"

Allowing a video to re-edit AFTER the contest, just to meet contest rules? Is that what IMRE Communications, the company hired to handle the contest, thinks is appropriate? Apparently this is their first time running anything like this YouTube contest. Can you tell? During the time the $25,000 "meltdown" contest was being run there was a PRWeek article. Manish Shrivastava, who is president of Home Depot Incentives and one of the people conducting this contest, had some things to say:

"[Home Depot] usually targets different mediums for campaigns, but felt it was time to throw its hat into the new-media ring in a significant way." He said the holiday season and this idea presented the perfect opportunity ... "It's a good way for us to learn and see what works for us in this space and optimize it from there".

If what has been witnessed is any indication, they would seem they have a lot of work to do in ensuring a legally-conducted contest. If you have any questions for them, or want to let them know what you think of the job they did, contact Will Zweigart at IMRE Communications (willz@imrecommunications.com, 410-821-8220).

I have received several supportive comments in the comments section here, but also several "naysayer" posts. But in every "naysayer" case they chose to address something, ANYTHING besides the substance of the alleged contest law violation. So, rather than endure more comments that have no real value other than to fein "concern", I offer a simple guideline for posting here. If you think that I am wrong about ANY information posted here, then just write a new comment saying something like:

"Hey, this is 'journalist' Patti Bond, and those articles that say that I'm going to work for Home Depot eight days after writing a glowing article about the Home Depot $25,000 contest aren't true, because ..."

- or even -

"This is Home Depot headquarters, and the reason we feel we were responsible for helping the Longs re-edit their video to comply with our contest is based on the Georgia legal statute XX-1234 that says, contrary to our contest rules, the entrants themselves are in NO WAY responsible for their own content. If we really like a video, we are legally obligated to help them win."

That last one I would LOVE to see come to reality. I would sleep better at night...

HD/LONGS: "ONE" CHANGE, REALITY "MANY"

In case you're just getting up to speed, there is a major controversy over the Home Depot $25,000 Gift Card contest. Chronologically, posts start at the bottom and go up, so scroll down to the bottom to get all the crazy details.

This post will address the scenes that were allowed to be modified AFTER the contest was over, just so Home Depot could retain them as winner, in apparent violation of their own contest rules. Home Depot and the Long family have now posted that the re-submitted video changed "one brief shot", but we know that is simply not true.

Below you will see messages from both Home Depot and the Long family that say an image was changed, as in singular... one. But all that aside, where in the contest rules does it say that it is Home Depot's responsibility to inform the entrant as to their eligibility? In the contest rules, it places sole responsibility on the entrant. So, allowing the Long family to modify their video and then resubmit AFTER the contest was over seems completely in violation of Home Depot's own contest rules. Home Depot's excuse that they gave everyone that "opportunity" seems besides the point, and more like a smokescreen than a legal justification. What do you think?

(UPDATE: To be fair, this may be a matter of parsing words. Upon reviewing the message threads preceding the re-edited video, the main objection by YouTube posters was the mention of "The Right Stuff" movie poster, which may have led to the "image" versus "images". It was a a seemingly obvious violation, so it was a natural focus for objection. It was only after the re-edited video was submitted that it became apparent the extent of the changes. These seem a little bit "word-smithy", but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt. It still doesn't alter the fact that Home Depot claims it was their responsibility to inform the winners AFTER the deadline that they needed to make some changes, a point which seems contradictory to anything I can find in the official contest rules.)