• by Tanya Gazdik , July 22, 2009

Nestlé's Butterfinger candy bar is looking for someone who can capture the best "crispety, crunchety, peanut-buttery" experience via video, with the winner getting $25,000 along with seeing the effort made into a national 15-second TV spot.

Butterfinger has created the user-generated video contest as a way for fans to respond to its new national TV ad campaign, which reintroduces a variation on the tagline made famous by Bart Simpson from 1990 to 2001: "Nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger."

Contestants can log on to www.ProtectYourButterfingerBar.com to enter until Aug. 25. Videos can be submitted in the following four categories: 1) best use of a gadget; 2) epic fail; 3) sweetest Kung Fu moves; and 4) workplace shenanigans. Video must incorporate a Butterfinger bar, showing how far one would go to protect their Butterfinger, and must include the tagline: "Nobody's gonna lay a finger on my Butterfinger."

A panel of judges will select one finalist video in each of the four categories. Video entries will be judged equally on the following criteria: 1) integration of the Butterfinger candy bar in a clever way, 2) originality and creativity, 3) overall appeal and 4) laugh factor.

The top video in each category will be posted online from Sept. 1-22 at www.ProtectYourButterfingerBar.com, where consumers can vote on their overall favorite video.

The grand-prize winner will receive $25,000, and the video will be featured in a 15-second TV commercial, as well as online on the Butterfinger Comedy Network, the Butterfinger Facebook page, www.ProtectYourButterfingerBar.com, and in other online venues. The grand prize winner also will receive a one-year supply of Butterfingers. Three first-prize winners each will receive a $1,000 check and a one-year supply of Butterfingers.

"We know that no one can express the one-of-a-kind Butterfinger experience better than a real-world fan," says spokesperson Tricia Bowles of Nestlé USA Confections & Snacks in a statement. "And since our biggest fans are also avid social media users, we're hoping to find 'a vlogger with a vision' to potentially become the next commercial video sensation."

The promotion of the video contest will be handled in part by four Butterfinger interns, who were selected after a nationwide summer job search yielded more than 400 applicants. The interns will help to promote the amateur video contest during their six-week summer internship. Their job is to tweet, text, vlog, blip, flickr and digg about the video contest.

The interns also will attend events where they will film videos of their experiences with new fans and Butterfinger enthusiasts alike. Their experiences will be relayed on their respective online sites, links, vlogs and blogs, which can be found at Facebook.com/Butterfinger.