rob salvatore mark burrell headquarters santa monica california united states area served worldwide products film and other production projects number of employees 50 2014 1 website www.tongal.com tongal is a crowdsourced studio . founded in 2009 in santa monica 2 the company maintains an online platform that connects businesses in need of creative work with an online community of writers directors and production companies . 3 tongal s original methodology for completing projects allows anyone to contribute at any of the steps along the way from ideation through the production of content . 3 tongal s creative community creates tv commercials original content digital advertising and instructional videos . 4 beyond projects for organizations such as sundance tongal s other clients have included lego mattel procter & gamble unilever johnson & johnson and nasa . 5 contents 1 history 1.1 founding and business model 2007 2009 1.2 early growth 2010 2013 1.3 recent developments 2014 2015 2 platform and process 3 notable projects 3.1 ads and commercial work 3.2 music videos and popular music 3.3 fiction film and documentaries 4 the tongies 5 awards and nominations 6 see also 7 references 8 external links history edit founding and business model 2007 2009 edit tongal was founded by james dejulio rob salvatore and mark burrell who first began developing the business model after a conversation in june 2007 . 1 the company was incorporated under a different name on may 12 2008 in delaware and the first iteration of tongal s platform was built using topcoder via crowdsourcing . 1 initially based in a new york hotel room 3 tongal went live and launched its first video project related to comedy.com on may 20 2009 . 1 tongal hired its first employee in october 2009 and two months later the community had 1 000 members . 1 as a crowdsourcing company for creative work tongal states that its mission is to bring the world s creative work to the world s creative talent . 3 the founders selected the name tongal as an anagram of galton referring to the social scientist sir francis galton . he had been highlighted in james surowiecki s novel the wisdom of crowds which posits that a diverse collection of people is likely to make certain decisions and predictions better than individuals or even experts . 6 the opening anecdote relates galton s surprise when a crowd at market tried to guess the weight of an ox and their averaged guesses proved accurate . the story would inspire tongal s ox logo . 3 early growth 2010 2013 edit the pitch phase of tongal debuted on march 16 2010 and marked the first tournament style project for the company . 1 in september 2010 the company was named to the pepsico10 7 for being one of the 10 most innovative start ups in social media . 1 among other projects in august 2011 the tongal video stuck on duck video project by david brashear went viral and for a time was the tenth most viewed video on vimeo . 1 in early 2012 the company launched its 100th project 1 and shortly after in february 2012 tongal began a long term partnership with lego . 1 the following month tongal began working with pringles and p & g 1 and in april 2012 tongal relocated to marina del rey in santa monica california . 1 in december 2012 tongal raised funds from insight venture partners . 1 tongal notably aired a speed stick commercial on february 3 2013 during the super bowl . titled unattended laundry and a part of speed stick s handle it campaign it was listed at no. 12 on a ranking of the top 2013 super bowl ads by the kellogg school of management . 1 on may 4 2013 tongal opened a new headquarters in santa monica . 1 in october 2013 a tongal office was opened in the united kingdom . 1 a new york city office opened in january 2014 . 1 recent developments 2014 2015 edit tongal was listed 205th in the inc 500 for 2014 which lists the fastest growing companies in the united states . 8 it also won a gold medal at the 2014 edison awards for collaboration and knowledge management . 9 as of 2014 tongal handled approximately 200 projects annually . 10 from 2010 to 2015 tongal s revenue had doubled five times . 11 tongal first held the tongies an awards ceremony for tongal community members in april 2014 . 1 as of 2015 tongal has a global community of more than 70 000 writers directors and filmmakers in 140 countries . 12 in 2015 it had seven films in the sundance film festival and 41 of its 70 000 workers earned salaries of over six figures . 13 platform and process edit tongal projects are open to anyone with a good idea and any filmmakers with the experience to execute it . 3 typically each project is posted onto the website and broken up into three phases idea pitch and video with all stages allowing contribution from anyone . 14 idea phase in this phase a business or entity posts a project to tongal with a total amount of prize money to be awarded over several phrases . 3 the community then generates ideas with short descriptions leaving often thousand of ideas for the business to choose from . finalists typically win a portion of the money even if their idea is not the final selection . 3 15 pitch phase in the next phase 1 which is intended for community members with a degree of technical skill directors and production companies pitch production aspects of the winning ideas for example storyboards and scripts . as of 2015 tongal states it receives about 50 pitches per project . 3 video phase after the business selects the production winner and awards money shooting begins on several projects with work also put into soundtracks and other aspects of production . from those finished videos the business selects the winners and distributes the rest of the prize money with some often relegated for runner up videos and third place videos . 3 notable projects edit ads and commercial work edit tongal s clients have included large companies such as facebook volvo cars 16 lego 5 mattel procter & gamble unilever johnson & johnson and nasa with videos often developed for particular brands and subsidiaries . 5 external video stuck on duck video project august 2011 an example of tongal s crowdsourcing approach for ads can be seen with duck products 2011 stuck on duck video project 17 18 which featured jay maynard aka tron guy . 1 the video which advertises a brand of ducktape was featured in wired magazine as a genius idea and doesn t use any special effects . 19 an early example of tongal s 1 work is a video under the demo section of kiva s french website . 20 tongal was used to source the video which serves to explain the process and clarify what we re doing and what our mission is . 21 in late 2012 tongal did its first spanish language project for suavitel 1 and also by that time the company had worked with pepsi on short video pieces about brisk tea with tongal facilitating a contest for the best film pitches . 22 tongal has also done video for the care bears and strawberry shortcake franchises through american greetings properties . 23 lucasfilm and pringles also jointly commissioned tongal for a commercial 24 with a total of 75 000 in prize money distributed to seven finalists . 25 in 2012 a tongal ad for speed stick was featured during the live broadcast of the super bowl . 25 music videos and popular music edit bands such as the who and umphrey s mcgee have had music video contests through tongal as well as bob marley s estate for a 2014 fan made video of one love people get ready . 26 external video one love by bob marley official music video december 4 2014 california feelin by the beach boys official music video december 9 2014 to promote the 2011 beach boys box set the the smile sessions music video concepts for good vibrations and heroes and villains were submitted through tongal with the concepts then voted on and ultimately selected by other fans . 27 28 a similar project was undertaken in 2013 for the beach boys box set made in california with fans contributing via tongal to the production of a music video 29 for the previously unreleased track california feelin . 30 tongal users were also given a chance to submit a lead guitar track for going to the beach 31 with the winner s performance mixed into the song by mark linett and alan boyd . 32 in april 2014 gene simmons launched a tongal project to celebrate the 40th anniversary of kiss . the project was part of a new tongal service titled left field which utilizes social media and short project descriptions . 33 fiction film and documentaries edit tongal has also had several projects to create original content . tongal teamed up with sundance institute and the bill & melinda gates foundation to create unique compelling and personal short films exploring an empowering person or an optimistic story about individuals and communities who are overcoming poverty and hunger combating disease or improving health . 34 the winners each received 10 000 and their films premiered at 2015 sundance film festival . citation needed tongal has also partnered with lionsgate women in film wif and the author of the twilight books stephenie meyer to create short films set in the twilight universe in 2014 . 16 other projects involved spitfire pictures . 35 directv announced it was partnering with tongal onthe next great american documentary in 2015 a 60 minute film meant to air in 2015 on directv s audience network channel . the project started with a subject phase open to anyone 13 years or older in the united states and has a 50 000 budget production budget . 36 the tongies edit the tongies awarded for 13 categories of production related to tongal projects presented by tongies nominating committee first awarded 2014 present official website tongies a tongie award is not to be confused with tongie a shetland sea spirit the tongies is an annual awards ceremony put on by tongal since 2014 . 10 the purpose of the tongies is to recognize the tongal community by awarding work done on tongal during the previous calendar year . 10 work is nominated by the tongies nominating committee with the nominated material then posted online for the community to vote on . 37 the various category winners are awarded a tongie a metal statuette fashioned as a head with a half smile half frown and a lightning bolt on top . 10 the first tongies awards ceremony was held april 2 2014 1 at the el rey theater in los angeles . thirteen tongies were awarded 37 with categories such as best comedy best broadcast spot best animation and video of the year . 38 kiss frontman gene simmons and the pointer sisters performed 37 with simmons awarding the best original song category . 33 the second annual tongies was held march 5 2015 at the avalon theater in hollywood . citation needed awards and nominations edit year award nominee category result 2014 edison awards tongal collaboration & knowledge management 9 won see also edit film portal internet portal crowdsourcing creative work pitching engine social networking service list of crowdsourcing projects list of video production companies list of social networking websites andrew adams filmmaker references edit a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w tongal timeline . tongal.com . retrieved 2015