(16 October 2007) bobshop awards R50,000 to the producers of a video commercial depicting a cordless computer mouse miraculously concluding a successful auction for a new computer monitor on bobshop - South Africa's Online Auction Website.

The Bob Shop Crazy for Cash competition kicked off at the beginning of August 2007 and ran for eight weeks. The campaign was promoted extensively on 5FM (website and on-air), Student Village, You Tube and Facebook, and leveraged off the growing success of user-generated content on the web with the popularity of reality content off the web.

This remarkably fun concept received over 300 video and image entries from aspiring producers all competing to win the R50 000 grand prize. From entries received, only 131 met the minimum submission criteria and had their entries published on the www.crazyforcash.co.za micro-site - a mini website specially created by Bob Shop for their Crazy for Cash competition. The micro-site received nearly 3,300 registrations, generated close to 138,000 page views and attracted 17,000 unique visitors.

bobshop's Managing Director, Andy Higgins says: "The success of Bob Shop is largely attributed to the strength of our community. It is for this reason that we decided to give the community an opportunity to create a Bob Shop hit song, jingle or commercial showing us how they could engage with our brand and create something that will catch the eye of the judges enough to win the R50 000 prize".

bobshop recognises that the youth are future entrepreneurs and believe that the campaign achieved the desired exposure across a carefully selected mix of youth internet sites and social networks, and it was designed with the short-term aim of introducing this target market to the brand in a fun and interactive way and with a long-term benefit of educating them on the benefits of ecommerce and empowering them to set up their own online businesses.

The campaign saw many crazy entries such as compulsive chilli eaters, daring stunts, aspiring pop stars and even a devoted love scene between a man and his cardboard cut-out Bob Shop branded partner. But in the end the ultimate prize went to Matthew Marais, in collaboration with a team of colleagues who call themselves Project 44. Project 44 is a creative think tank that has been working on ideas for expanding the creative industries in the Eastern Cape with a particular focus on film. These creative geniuses decided to submit their entry of the Bob Shop video clip entitled 'Crazy Mouse'. Says Marais: "We decided to enter the competition after having looked at the entries that had already been submitted and felt that none of the entries had quite hit the mark in terms of the 'creative brief' that Bob Shop had asked for in the competition guidelines. We thoroughly enjoyed taking part and producing our video clip for Bob Shop". The clip shows a frustrated mouse taking matters into his own hands when it logs onto Bob Shop, wins an auction for a new monitor to replace the one that it was rather annoyed with. Seconds after winning the auction - and managing to nudge the monitor off the desk - the doorbell rings, one assumes with the delivery of the new monitor that had just been won on the online auction.

The video clip was created using stop frame animation and all 'mouse shots' were shot over a period of six hours. It took the team another three hours to pull together the Bob Shop screenshots and then a further four hours to add in the sound and to do final editing. The entire process of putting the clip together took no less than one week. The final clip however, lasts for no more than forty seconds and in this short space of time, Marais and his team had managed to create a fun, crafty commercial that captures the essence of what bobshop is all about. The ease of shopping online, the bargains available and the convenience of having your purchase delivered to your door.