Case Study: Dude Perfect Trick Shot of the Month video contest
How the leading sports comedy YouTube channel used subscriber clips to launch a new app
2,000
trick shots
$30/minute
footage cost
270,000
new subscribers
Dude Perfect is best known for its trick shot videos. Its Ping Pong Trick Shots 3 video had received 320 million views by late 2023.
AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION
Teaching old dogs new tricks
Have you ever found yourself binge-watching Dude Perfect’s YouTube channel and wondering how they pull off those insane trick shots that make you question your own hand-eye coordination? If yes, you are not alone.
The former college roommates of who founded Dude Perfect as a comedy channel a decade ago —Tyler Toney, Cody Jones, Garrett Hilbert and twins Coby and Cory Cotton — now have an international success story on their hands. Dude Perfect has mastered the art of blending jaw-dropping trick shots with hilarious acts. Whether they’re shooting basketballs from absurd distances or creating crazy battles with giant inflatable obstacles, these guys have taken viral challenges to a whole new level.
With over 60 million subscribers and counting, Dude Perfect has become a household name for those seeking a daily dose of laughter and amazement. But in late 2023 they added a new string to their bow: adding footage from their audience into their existing video content strategy.
From mind-blowing ball stunts to quirky domino effects and a ton of bottle flips, the guys knew there were awesome trick shots being performed every day by their loyal audience. But how to harness this amazing footage and re-use in their channel. In this case study, we’re breaking down how Dude Perfect runs online video contests to obtain new footage, gain followers and boost audience engagement, all while keeping you hooked.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Client: Dude Perfect
Project: Trick Shot of the Month
Type: Community video contest
Summary: Ahead of the launch of its new app, the sports comedy YouTube channel Dude Perfect wanted to gather video clips of its followers performing their own trick shots. The channel put up a $10,000 prize for the best trick shot submitted in November 2023.
ABOUT DUDE PERFECT
The leader in trick shot entertainment globally
Dude Perfect is an US sports and comedy group headquartered in Frisco, Texas. The group consists of five former college roommates at Texas A&M University. The YouTube channel has over 60 million subscribers and is the second-most-subscribed sports channel as well as the 30th-most-subscribed channel overall. In addition to their main channel, they have launched additional channels such as Dude Perfect Plus, Dude Perfect Gaming, and Dude Perfect en Español. Collectively, these channels have amassed 1.8 million subscribers and garnered 116.7 million views in total, as of August 2023.
Dude Perfect’s content predominantly consists of videos depicting various trick shots, stereotypes, and stunts.
Why subscriber footage in part of the Dude Perfect YouTube Content strategy
Welcome to the era where your audience doesn’t just watch, but actively participate in shaping your content. Are you constantly seeking ways to innovate and connect with your audience on a deeper level?
Enter Vloggi – the game-changer in video submission management. Here is how incorporating audience-submitted clips can transform your channel and elevate your content creation process just like Dude Perfect’s.
The Challenge - How to collect trick shot footage from an online audience of 1.8 million?
Dude Perfect has over 1.8 million subscribers. Yet to date most videos are created by the team of co-founders, Tyler “The Beard” Toney, “The Twins” Cory and Coby Cotton, Garrett “The Purple Hoser” Hilbert, and Cody “The Tall Guy” Jones.
Hilbert reached out to Vloggi from his base in Texas with a challenge: the channel needed to easily collect video clips in a multitude of formats from potentially thousands of fans over a very short period of time. The channel was to run its first fan-sourced Trick Shot of the Month video contest.
After trialling an in-house solution and coming across issues around the legality of downloading social media content and also the time taken to complete content assignment forms for every contributor, Dude Perfect needed a tool that could collect thousands of videos and also allow them to manage the content and rights permissions of contributors and their parents.
The Solution - Video contest replaced cloud drives and permission forms
Dude Perfect, along with its production team at Kidoodle TV, used Vloggi to collect video submissions from the channel’s fans across the United States, Canada and the rest of the world. This replaced a Dropbox solution the team had previously considered, which woudl have also required manual permission form processing as well. The channel created a landing page on its website that linked to a Vloggi video form where fans could upload their trick shots together with some basic details. Due to the minor fanbase of the channel, there was a field in the video form not only to sign over content to the channel, but also to grant permission from a parent or guardian if the clip contained children.
Dude Perfect followers and subscribers uploaded videos of all dimensions, resolutions, formats and ratios via the Vloggi upload tool.
the team then created shortlists and favorited the best video clips as they came in, meaning that all the votes of the production team and Dude Perfect co-founders were taken into account through the team collaboration tools within Vloggi.
The Result - Almost 2000 viewer clips in 3-week video contest
The first month saw almost 2000 video clips uploaded. The team made a shortlist of 45 potential winners using the team voting and favorites tools. There could only be one winner and it was Zack Whitesides of Millvill, Utah, whose Brain-Blowing Banging Backflip Bullseye saw him become a local celebrity.
The contest was so successful that the Dude Perfect co-founder Core Cotton immediately posted that another video contest for Trick Shot of the Month would follow in 2024.
The return on investment was huge, with almost 2000 clips of usable content granted by the channel’s audience to the channel, equating to over 11 hours of compelling video content for a modest investment of approximately $20,000 including labor and the $10,000 prize. The total cost per minute of footage was approximately $30.
“Thousands of submissions came in. As you’ve seen, we’ve been posting them throughout the month. But of course there has to be a winner.”
Cory Cotton
Dude Perfect co-founder
