A contest consists of several phases. A distinction is made between public contests and private contests. Compared to public contests, private contests basically involve restrictions regarding the visibility and accessibility of certain essential components.

Public Contest

Public contests begin with the uploading phase: the briefing is generally published and ads can be uploaded. The ads are reviewed and, if approved, published so that they can already be rated, shared and commented on during this phase. This is followed by the rating phase: from this point on, no more ads can be uploaded, but everything else is still possible. This serves, among other things, to ensure that even the ads submitted and published last have sufficient time, usually around four weeks, and the opportunity to build up their valuable statistics such as views, ratings and shares. Finally, the awarding phase follows, usually around two weeks, during which the brand makes its award decisions, known as Rocker Awards, taking the ad statistics into account. During this time, the contest is ended or awarded, meaning that the awards are determined and directly visible to the public. Rating and the like naturally remain possible and continue to influence the awarding as long as the contest has not yet been awarded. When the contest is then ended, the prize money is credited to the winners' accounts on the platform and transferred to their actual bank accounts upon payout request.

Private Contest

Private contests follow a slightly modified process, mainly because the ads are generally not published and must be treated confidentially, which means that no interactions with other members take place. Here too, everything starts with the uploading phase. Submitted ads are reviewed and, if successful, approved internally, and only the creator is informed about this because even if approved, the ad must still be treated confidentially. This is followed by the checking phase: from this point on, no more ads can be submitted and the most recently uploaded ads are reviewed for internal approval. Finally, the awarding phase follows, during which the brand makes its award decisions. During this time, the contest is ended, meaning that the awards are determined and the placed members, but not the ads, are directly visible to the public. Internally, however, it can be decided that ads may still be published later on.

The first and most important thing is to read, understand and implement the briefing precisely. Understand the overall picture and pay attention to the details. Then upload your main ad on time. However, to be on the safe side, we recommend doing this as early as possible, among other things so that you can still react if necessary. This applies equally to public and private contests.

In public contests, your submitted ad is first reviewed before any possible publication, and the approval process usually takes around 10 working days, including for the ads submitted last, which is also why, logically, additional publications may still occur after the deadline. If your ad is published, you participate in the awards. Which ad receives which placement is ultimately decided by the brand. That means the brand makes the final award decisions in the overall context and taking the ad statistics into account. One more thing applies: if an ad is awarded, it only needs a brand rating of at least 3.0 to receive the full payout for that placement. If it is below that, the ad still receives 25 percent of it. In the case of doubtful or inappropriate brand ratings, SpotRocker has a right to have a say.

In private contests, the essential difference is simply that it is not about publication, but about internal approval. In other words, whether an ad successfully participates in the awards is shown by internal approval, about which only the creator is informed.

By the way, it is possible to participate in a contest with several main ads, provided that they differ sufficiently significantly.

In addition, so-called sub ads can be enabled in a contest. A sub ad is a very closely related variation of the main ad. As a rule, the variation relates to the aspect ratio, for example if the main ad is supposed to be 16:9 and the sub ad 9:16. Depending on the case, a sub ad can optionally be submitted as well, and it may also be possible to submit several sub ads per main ad.

First of all: this does not apply to private contests, because no ads are published during an ongoing private contest and therefore no member rating is possible, which means there are no rater awards in private contests.

In public contests, you can also participate without an ad by rating the ads of others in time, that is, as long as the contest has not yet been ended. This allows you to participate in the rater awards, and the placement you ultimately achieve is determined by your contest score, the so-called contest points, that you have when the contest is ended. The higher your score, the higher your chance of obtaining a better rater award placement. The contest points result from the points you collect for various actions on SpotRocker, such as sharing contests and ads, watching and commenting on ads, inviting friends, and so on.

A contest can announce several awards and budgets.

Rocker Awards

• The Rocker Awards are the primary prize category of a contest and apply to the awarding of ads.
• By participating via ad submission, members can win the Rocker Awards. This is decided by the brand's manual ranking assignment, taking the performance indicators and statistics of the ads into account.
• The awards can be monetary and/or material in nature, meaning cash prizes and/or non-cash prizes.

Audience Awards

• The Audience Awards apply to the awarding of ads.
• However, the placements are not determined manually, but automatically based on the ranking rating an ad has at the time the contest is ended and awarded.
• The ranking rating results from all ratings for an ad, both in number and in level, which means that the ad with, for example, the best overall rating receives first place.

Rater Awards

• The Rater Awards apply to the awarding of especially active members within a contest.
• By participating via ad rating, members can win the Rater Awards. This is determined automatically based on the amount of contest points the member has at the time the contest is ended and awarded.
• In other words, the more active the member is in the contest, the more points they receive and the higher their chances of winning.
• Being active particularly means watching, rating, commenting on and sharing ads. However, the member must have rated at least one ad in the contest in order to be considered for the Rater Awards at all.
• By the way, the Rater Awards are derived from the former Voter Awards, but now refer only to the specific contest.

Production Budget

• The production budget is optional and is a performance-based early reward, a cash prize, for approved main ads, in other words a downstream production budget.
• The process is as follows: each main ad that is approved receives a brand rating immediately beforehand.
• Upon approval, the main ad receives a share of the remaining production budget equal to its brand rating multiplied by the specified factor.
• Example: a brand rating of 4.25 with a factor of 100 results in an allocated production budget of 425 euros.
• This amount already belongs to you as the creator independently of the awards.
• The principle is: first released, first served.
• The budget is used up successively and allocated according to the time of approval, provided sufficient budget is still available.
• This means it can happen that the last main ad to receive budget does not receive the full budget according to its brand rating, but less, because too little is left at the time of approval.
• It is also possible that the budget is not fully exhausted.
• For your information: it is highly advisable to submit your briefing-compliant ad as early as possible so that you can receive approval for your ad and thus your share of the production budget as early as possible.

Extra Budget

• The extra budget, which may exist in the case of sub ads, works according to the same principle as the production budget, but applies to sub ads.
• As a rule, a lower budget and a lower factor are used here.

For Your Information

• A contest must have either Rocker Awards or Audience Awards, although both are also possible at the same time.
• All awards can be monetary and/or material in nature, meaning cash prizes and/or non-cash prizes.
• The amounts you receive are credited to your winner account, and you can request the payout to your bank account directly.

It may happen that you need to rely on archived or third-party material for your creation so that you can implement your idea at all or achieve a certain effect in the first place. For example, this may involve background music or special sequences that you cannot create yourself. There are many reasons to use material that was not produced exclusively for the campaign or your ad.

Since SPOTROCKER is primarily about creation and impact, we allow the use of such material under certain conditions. However, it can be stated very clearly and logically that brands very much want exclusive and original material for their ads.

Nevertheless, archived material or stock footage may be used, but only material that complies with our terms of use, especially with regard to the granting of rights. Important criteria are that:

• commercial use is permitted, since editorial content is generally not allowed for this purpose.
• no copyright information, credits or attribution, must be provided.
• in the case of music, there is no connection to collecting societies or performing rights organizations such as GEMA or ASCAP.
• in the case of recognizable persons, so-called model releases are in place.
• no third-party brands are prominently visible.

From the large number of sources that provide stock material, we have compiled a selection of sources below that offer very good quality and very inexpensive or even free options as well as license plans that are suitable for use on SPOTROCKER.

This means that, based on the current situation, you can generally assume that the use of these materials will not create an obstacle in the approval process for your ad. Naturally, providers reserve the right to change their licensing terms, which means that in case of doubt the current individual case must always be reviewed.

It should also be noted that when purchasing third-party material, the issued license document usually needs to be made out to you as the submitter.

Please also note that the use of unsuitable material would inevitably lead to the rejection of the submitted ad, which would be an unnecessarily unpleasant situation for everyone involved.

Suitable Sources

So if you use stock material, we particularly recommend the FOLLOWING SUITABLE SOURCES. Be sure to observe the respective notes carefully:

→ Adobe Stock

Notes:
- Free material is also possible.
- Verification during ad upload via invoice and a link to the specific material.
- For audio, the license code must also be provided.

→ Artgrid / Artlist (for Video)

Notes:
- Particularly suitable for TV.
- Please note: audio is not possible.
- At least a Creator License or Footages & Templates License is required.
- Verification during ad upload via PDF license document.

→ Audiohub

Notes:
- Particularly suitable for TV.
- Verification during ad upload via PDF license document.

→ Audiojungle

Notes:
- Particularly suitable for TV.
- Please note: many tracks are connected to a performing rights organization, P.R.O., see track details. However, this can already be filtered during the search.
- Even the smallest license plan is possible.
- Verification during ad upload via PDF license document.

→ Elevenlabs

Notes:
- At least a Starter License is required.
- Verification during ad upload via invoice.

→ Envato Elements

Notes:
- Please note: music is only possible if the same track is also available on Audiojungle. In addition, many tracks are connected to a performing rights organization, P.R.O., see track details. However, this can already be filtered during the search.
- Verification during ad upload via PDF license document.

→ Epidemic Sound

Notes:
- At least a Commercial License is required.
- Verification during ad upload via PDF license document or subscription proof of purchase plus title and artist information.

→ Freesound

Notes:
- Only sounds, no music, under the CC 0 / Public Domain license are possible.
- Verification during ad upload via a link to the specific material.

→ Graphicriver

Notes:
- Even the smallest license plan is possible.
- Verification during ad upload via PDF license document.

→ Jamendo

Notes:
- At least a Standard License is required.
- Verification during ad upload via PDF license document.

→ Midjourney

Notes:
- At least a Pro Plan is required.
- Verification during ad upload via an invoice for the current plan.

→ Motionarray

Notes:
- Particularly suitable for TV.
- Please note: many tracks are connected to a performing rights organization, P.R.O., see track details. However, this can already be filtered during the search.
- Free material is also possible.
- Verification during ad upload via PDF license document.

→ Musicfox

Notes:
- At least a Standard License is required.
- Verification during ad upload via PDF license document.
- The license must be issued to the brand.

→ Photodune

Notes:
- Particularly suitable for TV.
- Even the smallest license plan is possible.
- Verification during ad upload via PDF license document.

→ Pond5

Notes:
- Particularly suitable for TV.
- Please note: many tracks are connected to a performing rights organization, P.R.O., see track details. However, this can already be filtered during the search.
- Please note: free material is not possible.
- Verification during ad upload via PDF license document.

→ Videohive

Notes:
- Particularly suitable for TV.
- Even the smallest license plan is possible.
- Verification during ad upload via PDF license document.

→ Videvo

Notes:
- Please note: audio is not possible until further notice.
- Only the Royalty Free License is possible.
- Free material is also possible.
- Verification during ad upload via a link to the specific material.

→ 3DOcean

Notes:
- Even the smallest license plan is possible.
- Verification during ad upload via PDF license document.

There are certainly other providers that may also be possible. However, these would first have to be reviewed, which could considerably delay your approval process, and we therefore do not recommend that in your own interest.

NOT POSSIBLE SOURCES

At this point, we can directly name some sources that are, as things currently stand and until further notice, NOT POSSIBLE: Artlist for music, Audiio, Audiosocket, Incompetech, Premiumbeat, Bensound, Soundstripe.

CONDITIONALLY POSSIBLE SOURCES

There are also sources that may only be conceivable in certain campaigns. This is then either noted in the respective briefing or can be requested from us. The following sources are only CONDITIONALLY POSSIBLE:

Creative Commons 0 / Public Domain Material

Notes:
- Although a CC 0 / PD license is in principle very suitable, caution is advised here because a lot of material is unlawfully declared as such.
- Other Creative Commons licenses such as CC BY are not possible.
- Verification during ad upload is generally done via a link to the specific material.

→ Storyblocks

Notes:
- Please note: many tracks are connected to a performing rights organization, P.R.O., see track details.
- Verification during ad upload via a personalized license document and a link to the specific material.

→ Pixabay and → Pexels

Notes:
- Please note: audio as well as material featuring recognizable persons is not possible.
- Verification during ad upload via a link to the specific material.

→ YouTube Audio Library

Notes:
- Only material for which no attribution is required is possible, see the filter.
- Verification during ad upload via specific information about title and artist.

It also happens that you already have your own ad material created earlier that now fits your current creation exactly. This use is also possible as long as the new ad actually constitutes a new ad in terms of type, scope and so on, and has not already been published elsewhere before publication on SPOTROCKER. Whether it is a new ad in a sufficiently dominant form can only be assessed in the specific individual case. If that is not the case, the ad may be disqualified, even retrospectively.

In any case, we are gradually supplementing and updating these lists, so you should keep checking back here. If you know sources that you believe are suitable and should be added here, simply send us a short message via the contact form in the footer so that we can review the source.

→ Consent document for third parties, such as actors, and locations

If your ad affects the rights of third parties, for example actors, musicians or voice artists, and there is no formal proof regarding the granting of rights that is automatically issued or otherwise available, such as the license document when purchasing music online, your ad must be submitted together with the following template, completed by each rights holder: → SpotRocker-Einwilligungen-Consents.pdf. This becomes particularly relevant when using friends or similar people and is especially necessary in the case of underage actors or original compositions provided by third parties.