OTWS x Vans Customs Contest (Win a free pair!)

Custom shoe artist's creations.
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daewond3r
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Re: OTWS x Vans Customs Contest (Win a free pair!)

Post by daewond3r »

Yeah...I love this contest idea B, but this is definitely a learning experience for the next contest (if there is one).

Personally, I refuse to let just anyone follow me. I keep my stuff open, but I block all spam followers and anyone who would appear to be following me just for the sake of a high follower count. All these “I'll like every picture I see today, do the same for me!" people kinda suck. The current leader has more than twice the votes the second place person. I guess with close to 4k followers that's easy though. I just think it's kinda weak that contributing OTWS members are losing out to a IG whore. Sure, I'd like to win, but more importantly I'd like to see those shoes go to someone who actually is down with OTWS.

Have you seen an influx in forum member sign ups? Just curious.
@bythedaesend (twitter + instagram)
Wanted:
Vans x in4mation Chukka Low size 10 DS/VNDS
Vans x Supreme Old Skool S/S '11 grey/purple size 10 DS/VNDS
Vans Era 45 Fixed Gear (any color) size 10 DS/VNDS
Vans Syndicate x Usugrow set 10 DS/VNDS

**Supreme/Syndicate/Proper/In4mation+more** sz 9.5-10.5
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Re: OTWS x Vans Customs Contest (Win a free pair!)

Post by crisone »

Jer....I was thinking the exact same thing.....how does one know who's in what place???

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Re: OTWS x Vans Customs Contest (Win a free pair!)

Post by rocketgoof »

Ah, crap, is the contest over?! I was out of town and didn't have much internet access for the past week. I've had a pair saved for a while that I could submit!
Hello, my name is Kyle and I'm addicted to Vans. I'm a size 9.5 or 10.

Looking for Supreme Disruptive Era's (any color, but especially teal), Supreme dark teal pebbled leather chukka, navy GR Zero Lo's...

@IAmRocketKyle on the instagramz.
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Re: OTWS x Vans Customs Contest (Win a free pair!)

Post by daewond3r »

crisone wrote:Jer....I was thinking the exact same thing.....how does one know who's in what place???

Cris.
Sometimes when I'm at work I use ink361.com to check out IG. It's way easier to scroll through images and whatnot. On a 27" iMac it's pretty sweet.

My gf said when she voted for me that I had 130 or something like that and she thought that was pretty high. So I decided to check out the standings and I found the following:

http://ink361.com/#/photos/255701301689163630_50169710

Too lazy to go through it now, but I think I remember the 2nd place person at 200 something. Everyone else is under 200.
@bythedaesend (twitter + instagram)
Wanted:
Vans x in4mation Chukka Low size 10 DS/VNDS
Vans x Supreme Old Skool S/S '11 grey/purple size 10 DS/VNDS
Vans Era 45 Fixed Gear (any color) size 10 DS/VNDS
Vans Syndicate x Usugrow set 10 DS/VNDS

**Supreme/Syndicate/Proper/In4mation+more** sz 9.5-10.5
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Re: OTWS x Vans Customs Contest (Win a free pair!)

Post by jacobmontana »

Word....way to many entree's imo also.
Maybe next contest is ran for only OTWS members?
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acoustic_rancid
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Re: OTWS x Vans Customs Contest (Win a free pair!)

Post by acoustic_rancid »

My entry never had a chance, but I'm not too concerned.
Given how the contest was set up, I think it went pretty well. If people wanted to redirect their followers to the otws account, have them sort through the hundred odd entries and like their photo, then good for them. They're better/more committed to spamming IG than me.

Personally, I thought it was pretty cool seeing what everyone came up with, and seeing some OTWS forum members' names in the mix made it better.

Honestly, I'm surprised the frontrunner only had 500 or so likes. I guess all those american flag and camo designs split their respective votes!
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Re: OTWS x Vans Customs Contest (Win a free pair!)

Post by DJGuamstyles »

I knew the contest would be successful because people naturally flock to free shit. AND I made it easy as hell to enter. Everyone goes on the Vans Customs site to play around with the design app, so why not just take the extra step and click the share button, and email it to OTWS? That was the only way I was going to get everyone's designs in a consistent way. Imagine if I just asked people to take a cel phone pic of the PC monitor? Half would be out of focus, or with the flash on, or whatever. I wanted it to be a legit thing, and it took a lot of extra work on my part.

I had to create a special email just for this contest, then figure out if the share form would share the shoes with my email. I honestly thought that it would send me a decent sized pic to my email, but it didn't. It was like a 1" photo, and grainy as shit. I couldn't use that, so I knew I had to visit their design on the Vans site, and screen shot it. That means I had to use Photoshop to display the shoe. Well, then I thought some shoes look better from the top view, so then I decided to do two screen shots per shoe, and then merge them together on one photo. Then I said, I'm never gonna remember each person's name, so I decided to type their names on each one. Then I had to create a photo save folder to sync with itunes, to upload them to my phone with, since that's the only way an Instagram post can be made!

Then once I had the photos on my phone, I couldn't just plaster the Instagram feed with all the submissions, no...I had to slowly trickle them out, so that I wouldn't piss off everyone with a bunch of crappy designs, lol! I didn't want to create a second Instagram account just for this contest, because I wanted it to be exposed to our base of INstagram followers. So that meant every few hours, I had to jump on my IG account to do that, hehe.

Once people started complaining, then I decided to just stop it. I wanted to end it at 100, but there were still a good 20 or so submissions coming in daily, AND the patriotic theme was dwindling away, and some good stuff was starting to come thru again. I wanted to see some more designs, but yeah, in the end I was glad to tie it all up. Travii is by far in the lead, and he's hustlin'. He just utilizes general hashtags to his benefit. He posts a quick comment on a bunch of people's timelines, and it works. He's one of Brant's customers, because he has a ton of Silo related pics, hehe, so it's all good to me. He's indirectly or directly a supporter of OTWS.

I was given two coupon codes from Vans Affiliates, and the stipulation was that I had to create a contest, to give either both, or one away. I kept one for myself, but if you guys can come up with a good contest to run, here on the forums, I don't mind giving it away. These Vans Customs are cheap anyways, and I don't mind paying $65 to have my own designed stuff. ($75 for Old Skools). What do you suggest? Everyone's gonna vote for their own I assume, hehe. K, sorry for the loooong explanation or rant. This is just what I've had to deal with, on my end, lol!
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Re: OTWS x Vans Customs Contest (Win a free pair!)

Post by daewond3r »

Just want to clarify....I definitely respect and appreciate the effort you put into this Billy. No ill feelings there whatsoever.

I guess I was just looking at it from the perspective of a "forums first/IG second" user. I didn't realize how many people are becoming a part of the OTWS community just using IG.
@bythedaesend (twitter + instagram)
Wanted:
Vans x in4mation Chukka Low size 10 DS/VNDS
Vans x Supreme Old Skool S/S '11 grey/purple size 10 DS/VNDS
Vans Era 45 Fixed Gear (any color) size 10 DS/VNDS
Vans Syndicate x Usugrow set 10 DS/VNDS

**Supreme/Syndicate/Proper/In4mation+more** sz 9.5-10.5
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Re: OTWS x Vans Customs Contest (Win a free pair!)

Post by DJGuamstyles »

Hehe naw I was just saying how much work it takes to put something like this on in a legit way. And, in no way will the IG community be a part of the True OTWS community that we have here, unless they sign up on here, but most don't and won't. They just like looking at cool and unique Vans and stuff that relates to Vans. My contest had to involve reaching a lot of people, and Instagram is where it's at right now. I had to give one or both coupon codes away, but yeah I see why you guys thought I should've "kept it in the family". I used it as an opportunity to get the word about OTWS out there, even further, and it worked!
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Re: OTWS x Vans Customs Contest (Win a free pair!)

Post by rocketgoof »

I definitely think it's awesome that you put that much work into it, Billy! I wish I would've been able to submit an entry, but oh well, maybe we'll just have a forum only contest one day! Keep up the great work, though. We all appreciate what you do!
Hello, my name is Kyle and I'm addicted to Vans. I'm a size 9.5 or 10.

Looking for Supreme Disruptive Era's (any color, but especially teal), Supreme dark teal pebbled leather chukka, navy GR Zero Lo's...

@IAmRocketKyle on the instagramz.
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Re: OTWS x Vans Customs Contest (Win a free pair!)

Post by silokinesis »

Didnt pay attention to who was winning at all Guam, funny if its travis.... he's a super nice kid, a great customer and buys a ton of vans......and as you said, using the instagram angles to his advantage. At least the shoe design is a decent one....would be disheartening if it was a total dud.

I think / thought the instagram idea was great too, but did not even think about the popularity contest it could become based on # of followers...what seemed to have a perfect voting system because you cant double like something without creating a fake account, is all blown out the door if someone just has a bunch of friends / followers / network.

Overall, though, we cant REALLY choose who visits the site and joins the board...would love to keep it super elite, but we all started off somewhere, buying that first pair of shoes that was seemingly out of reach, or special, etc....so all in all, the contest is about raising awareness. So if 100 kids out of the thousands total that voted check the news page more often, or contribute good info on the message board, or buy a shoe using the affiliate link, it is a wild success.

You guys probably said all that before I did in the posts above, just started ranting my 2 cents.

Have to give Bill credit for all the hard work, had no idea you were investing that much time into each and every post. Definitely putting in work for the love.....
Silo. authorized vans syndicate dealer -current release available via http://shop.silostore.com! Or PM for previous releases...
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Re: OTWS x Vans Customs Contest (Win a free pair!)

Post by rocketgoof »

This is what I would've submitted if I was around to check up on things and participate... I've had this design saved for like a year, so I need to pull the trigger soon! haha

Image
Image
Hello, my name is Kyle and I'm addicted to Vans. I'm a size 9.5 or 10.

Looking for Supreme Disruptive Era's (any color, but especially teal), Supreme dark teal pebbled leather chukka, navy GR Zero Lo's...

@IAmRocketKyle on the instagramz.
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Re: OTWS x Vans Customs Contest (Win a free pair!)

Post by DJGuamstyles »

Thanks Brant and guys. Yeah I'm a control freak, so I wanted the Instagram submissions to all be consistent. It's funny though, how people don't read instructions. So many people did what Kyle just did right above, and tried to replicate how I was creating each photo, and then they were just tagging me on IG. Sadly, those submissions won't be seen by our followers, lol! Kyle, that's a pretty wild design man! It might've gotten 100 likes. I think any submission in the contest that reached 100 likes is a solid win IMO. Did you guys notice that a lot of the submissions were showing up in the "pre-designed" options at the bottom of the Vans Customs page? I hope Vans realizes how much we've contributed to their program, and how much awareness we've brought to it. I just hope people create their designs through the OTWS Vans links!
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Re: OTWS x Vans Customs Contest (Win a free pair!)

Post by Nexustree »

I probably won't with the cotest but is there any possibility that you could get it for me in my design as they don't deliver to Singapore?

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Re: OTWS x Vans Customs Contest (Win a free pair!)

Post by rocketgoof »

DJGuamstyles wrote:Thanks Brant and guys. Yeah I'm a control freak, so I wanted the Instagram submissions to all be consistent. It's funny though, how people don't read instructions. So many people did what Kyle just did right above, and tried to replicate how I was creating each photo, and then they were just tagging me on IG. Sadly, those submissions won't be seen by our followers, lol! Kyle, that's a pretty wild design man! It might've gotten 100 likes. I think any submission in the contest that reached 100 likes is a solid win IMO. Did you guys notice that a lot of the submissions were showing up in the "pre-designed" options at the bottom of the Vans Customs page? I hope Vans realizes how much we've contributed to their program, and how much awareness we've brought to it. I just hope people create their designs through the OTWS Vans links!
Haha, I just did it quick and dirty since I knew it wasn't going to be a proper submission. Hence the different sizes of the images... (I know, the designer in me recoiled in terror when I saw the unequal edges...) Otherwise I would've followed the rules! 100 likes would've been sweet! haha
Hello, my name is Kyle and I'm addicted to Vans. I'm a size 9.5 or 10.

Looking for Supreme Disruptive Era's (any color, but especially teal), Supreme dark teal pebbled leather chukka, navy GR Zero Lo's...

@IAmRocketKyle on the instagramz.
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