Lending Club Video Awards attract over 100,000 viewers on YouTube in contest to find the best user-generated video ads for its new person-to-person lending service. Winners include Chris Barrett, professional filmmaker, and Share Ross, former bassist for platinum-selling recording artists, Vixen.

SUNNYVALE, CA – August 17, 2007 - Lending Club, the rapidly growing person-to-person lending service, today announced the winners of its Lending Club Video Awards contest. The contest took place simultaneously on Facebook and YouTube from July 18 through August 10, 2007. Users were invited to create and submit Lending Club video ads for a cash prize. The submissions were viewed more than 100,000 times in just five weeks, and due to the overwhelming popularity, Lending Club has decided to raise the cash prize to $8,000 (from $5,000) to be shared among four winners.

"Lending Club represents a new way for people to lend and borrow money among each other, so we decided that the best way to promote our P2P lending service was to challenge our users to create videos to explain our benefits," said Renaud Laplanche, CEO and founder of Lending Club.

"However, nothing could have prepared us for the incredible popularity of our video contest and the quality of our top submissions. So, our team got together and agreed to increase our prize amount to reward four directors instead of just one."

The winners of the Lending Club Video Awards are:

Best Video Award ($3,000 Cash Prize): Chris Barrett (17,825 views). Chris Barrett is a professional filmmaker and co-founder of Powerhouse Pictures Entertainment, LLC along with actor Efren Ramirez. He can also be seen in the award winning documentaries "The Corporation" and "Maxed Out". His professionally filmed short takes a humorous look at one of the many real life situations in which regular people can benefit from using Lending Club.

YouTube® Viewers Award ($3,000 Cash Prize): Steve Dinelli (19,011 views). Eighteen-year-old Steve Dinelli's stop-motion video demonstrates Steve's extraordinarily promising talent, while giving examples of what Lending Club loans can be used for. Steve's video was acclaimed by YouTube's viewers and has surpassed the 20,000-view mark.

Storyboard Award ($1,500 Cash Prize): Jonathan Reed (6,480 views). Jonathan Reed entered the contest in its last week with an astonishing video that showcases Lending Club's social lending features and Facebook® presence in a well animated and engaging storyboard. Congratulations, Jonathan!

Jury Prize ($500 Cash Prize): Share Ross (1,018 views). Share Ross is the former bassist for the platinum-selling EMI recording artists Vixen and guitarist and singer for Bubble. Share calls P2P lending a "wonderful form of anarchy". Her video gives a personal perspective on the advantages of borrowing on Lending Club.

18 competitors, 4 winners, $8,000 in prizes, 100,000+ views

We have just announced on Facebook® the names of the 4 winners in the first Lending Club Video Contest. The Contest took place simultaneously on Facebook® and YouTube® from July 18th through August 10th and the Lending Club videos have been watched a combined 100,000 times on YouTube® in this past 5 weeks.

Our original plan was to give away a single $5,000-prize to the most-watched video. However, after reaching out to the top competitors, we have all agreed to split the main prize, create additional prizes and incorporate other criteria than just YouTube® views including overall quality of original content, clarity of the message, and entertainment value of the video.

And the winners are…(drum roll):

$3,000 Best Video Award - Chris Barrett

Chris Barrett: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G43bLni8Or4 (17,825 views). Chris Barrett is a professional filmmaker and co-founder of Powerhouse Pictures Entertainment, LLC along with actor Efren Ramirez. Chris is currently directing the documentary "After School" studying the phenomenon of illicit teacher-student relationships. He can also be seen in the award winning documentaries "The Corporation" and "Maxed Out," both currently on DVD. Read Chris’ interview by Tom Tolman.

$3,000 YouTube® Viewers Award - Steve Dinelli

Steve Dinelli: http://youtube.com/watch?v=S6RtyX47r_M (19,011 views). Eighteen-year-old Steve Dinelli’s « stop motion » video shows Steve’s talent as well as his ability to convey the right messages about Lending Club. Steve’s video was acclaimed by YouTube’s viewers and has passed the 20,000-view mark. Read Steve’s interview by Tom Tolman.

$1,500 Storyboard Award - Jonthan Reed

Jonathan Reed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSn9nlZC8kM (6,480 views). Jonathan Reed entered the contest in its last week, with an astonishing video that blends Lending Club’s branding and Facebook® presence with a well thought-through and very convincing storyboard. Congratulations Jonathan!

$500 Jury Prize - Share Ross

Share Ross: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOyl4Vh-ZhE (1,018 views). Share feels p2p lending is a wonderful form of anarchy and her video is compelling in its direct exchange of information. Share is the former bassist for the platinum-selling EMI recording artists Vixen and guitarist and singer for Bubble. Read Share’s interview by Tom Tolman.

We are delighted at the outcome of this first contest, have gathered great videos that we will be posting on our Web site to explain the benefits of person-to-person lending, and have learned a lot more about the YouTube ecosystem and the best ways to reach out to the filmmaker community.

By watching videos made by people not previously familiar with p2p lending, we also understood better how our company is being perceived, and how we can best benefit from, or when inaccurate, positively influence, that perception.

A big “thank you” to all 18 participants; we certainly hope to see you around soon for our next video contest!

In case you missed it yesterday, Renaud Laplanche, our CEO, did an eHub interview with Emily Chang.

We are happy to announce a new interview that has just posted on Social Lending Watch with John Donovan our COO.

Lending Club would like to thank Social Lending Watch for taking the time to do this. We really appreciate the opportunity that interviews give our company. If there are any questions, please feel free to leave us a comment or leave us a message in our Facebook forum.

Paul O'Flaherty of the O'Flaherty blog did an interview with our COO, John Donovan.

Download the podcast right here (9.8 mb).