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How To Win The Pitch Video Challenge

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The deadline for the Pitch Video Challenge is here, and if you haven’t created and submitted your video, now is the time! In this post, I’d like to take a closer look at the judging criteria for the Challenge, talk about what you need to do to win, and give you some advice.

Before we get started, though, I want to direct your attention over to Channel 9, where we’ve published a series of videos on pitching your project. John talks with experts in games, innovation and world citizenship and offers real-world advice on making your pitch a winner.

Now, let’s talk about scoring.

Your Pitch Video will be reviewed by a team of judges, and each of them will give it a score from 0 to 100. They’re not just picking those scores at random, though! If you read over the Official Rules, you can see the judging criteria; each item is worth points, and the total of all your points is your final score.

So how do you get the most points possible? By making sure you cover every single one of the judging criteria items. We’ll go over the three sections and talk about what you should do for each of them.

Concept

The Concept section of the criteria is all about your great idea. We want to hear what you’re planning to create, and at the end of the video the judges should have a clear picture of your project. Here are the key points you should cover:

  • What is your project? You should try to give a complete summary of the basic idea of the project in one or two sentences, at most. Think of a headline in a newspaper: clear, concise, and to the point.
  • Who is your project for? Tell us about your target audience. Is it a game for kids? A game for adults? A resource for NGOs? A tool for farmers? Who’s your user? The more you know about your user, the more we believe in your project’s viability.
  • What makes your idea interesting? We’ve already got Twitter, so if you’re proposing a new microblogging platform, you’d better make it sound fantastic. What are your killer features? You’re excited about your project. Make us excited, too.
  • Have you done your homework? If you propose a medical app, you’d better have the medical literature to back it up. If you’re trying to solve a crisis in the developing world, we want to hear about the research you’ve done on that crisis. If you’re making a platform-jumping game, tell us about other platform games you’ve played, and how they relate to yours.

Pitch Quality

Your idea is important, but when you’re giving a pitch, the presentation is just as important. We want to hear about a great project, but you have to meet us halfway with a polished, clear and comprehensible presentation. Here are the two key points you should consider:

  • Be clear. We can’t evaluate your video if we can’t understand you. Do a test recording and then listen to it and see if the acoustics are reasonable. Last year we had a number of videos with echoes so bad that we couldn’t make out what was being said. Don’t be that team. And remember that all Imagine Cup contest materials must be in English. We’ve had to reject a few videos for not being in English. We’re not judging your video on your English skills, just on clarity, so get a decent microphone and go for it!
  • Be dynamic. You can just sit in front of a camera against a white background and talk; we’re not asking for special effects or thrilling transitions. But we don’t want to be bored, either. Get one of your teammates, and take turns talking. Practice a few times so that you don’t sound like you’re reading from a script. Get up and move around, if you have a friend to manage the camera for you. Keep us interested, so we can focus on the real star: your project.

Feasibility

The best and most exciting project in the world is nothing if it doesn’t ever come to market and reach the users it’s intended for. We’d be excited if you promised to cure cancer and send people to Mars, but we’d ask ourselves: can they really do that? Here are some key points to cover:

  • Talk about money. How will your project pay for itself? What’s your business model? Are you going to charge for the project, or will it be free and supported by advertising, or in-app purchases? How much will it cost to purchase, and how does that price compare to other, similar products? Do your research, look at your competition, check out different business models.
  • Talk about technology. What will you be using to build your project? Will users need any special hardware or software, and if so, how common is that hardware or software? What programming languages are you using? Do you have a client-server model planned? How will servers be paid for? What’s your target platform, and what features of that platform are you planning to use?
  • Talk about costs. You’re probably going to arrive at the Imagine Cup World Finals with, at best, a working prototype. You’ll have more development work to do before your project is ready for market. How much work will be left to do? How long will it take? How much will it cost? Be realistic about how much more time and money you’ll need to get your project to a finished state after the competition’s over.

Conclusion

Remember that this is just the rehearsal for the real challenge: presenting your project, live, in front of a panel of Imagine Cup judges at the World Finals in Seattle. Focus on that experience: you, in front of judges, talking about why you should be the overall winner in your category. Nail each and every one of the points above, comprehensively, and you’ll have a massive advantage over your competition.