Hitchhiker's guide to Mod Sponsorship

The big boys, a.k.a. Manufacturers

Manufacturer sponsorship is a dying art form, at least directly between the company and the modder. Aside from the very difficult "Who do I even contact at the company?!" question, most emails that even find the right person are either disregarded or given a quick "no."

It's not that the companies don't care - it's that all of these requests are fielded by the company's PR teams (whether in-house or an outside agency). These people may be familiar with modding, but many of them aren't - and most don't have time to hear about it while they're trying to plan for massive advertising campaigns that show up across computer and business magazines worldwide.

Manufacturers deal in big-volume sales - volumes which make anything that a single modder can influence pretty insignificant unless that person has some pretty big exposure. Instead, these companies will sometimes select modders to design something specifically to promote a product, which is then made for the company to have for an indefinite timespan.

These types of mods are designed around that product alone, like the Creative X-Fi mod. Usually, the company will pay the entire cost of the mod plus some extra for the modder - but these opportunities are very rare and only come to established names, and usually through association with a big-name site.


A couple manufacturers are still very good about dealing with modders directly, but for the most part this is where you need good relations with a site that features your work. For instance, I'm regularly either on the phone, MSN or email with companies like Intel, Corsair, Seagate, Silverstone, and others to get a piece of kit out to a valuable modder. These companies are worldwide, and expect that their kit be featured in top-end, attention grabbing boxes that will get wide exposure via an online publication, and occasionally will even ask to take the mod to a trade show such as CES or Computex.

But before I end up doing that, the mod will have either won a competition on our site or be something that we want to feature on our front page - not a short order by any means. Competition for the front pages or regular attention of high-level modding sites is fierce and a worthy but lofty goal. When it happens, though, you know that you've made something to earn it - the level of detail that goes into a front-page mod requires dedication that very few have the patience for.

Those that do are often serial modders who can be featured for creation after creation, building a reputation up with vendors and site managers alike. They're the names that you see appear on our front page over and over again - Greensabbath, Wolverine, G-Gnome, macroman, Sleepstreamer - project after project is done with meticulous detail.

Dress to impress

So, you want the attention of the big guys, and you think your mod deserves a look...but how do you know if we'll feel the same? Well, I took a straw poll of some of the other people who help make sponsorship decisions at various companies, and there's two qualities that are at the top of everyone's list: originality and execution.

Originality is "easy" - at least, easily defined. Make something you haven't seen before! You can look at some of my previous choices for Mod of the Month contestants to see what I mean. The winner from October's competition built his cases almost entirely from recycled junk. Another contestant last month used aeroplane flooring as part of his construction tools.


As you look over each of the previous winners for the contest, you'll see a theme of original design and great execution, and many of the times it's the most original design that you vote for as the winner. After all, how many people have thought to put a computer in an aquarium base before? And out of the few who've tried, how many actually made something worth sitting in a living room?

These creative designs capture the imaginations of modders everywhere, and end up becoming "the one before" the modder gets a big sponsorship break.