The new hip thing to do in corporate America is to get people to make commercials or videos about your products and then give away a prize for the best ones. For example, there was a Super Bowl commercial made by amateurs (for Doritos, I think) that made it on to last month's Super Bowl broadcast.

This marketing scheme works well for some products, in particular those that might already have a fan base. Cars, snack foods, skateboards, etc. But for others it's a bit more questionable. Exhibit A: TurboTax's tax rap contest on YouTube.

As you might guess from its name, the contest asks you to write a rap about TurboTax and taxes in general, then videotape yourself doing so. The winner gets $25,000.

To their credit, TurboTax got Vanilla Ice, one of the most respected rappers of all time, to be the spokesperson for the contest, ensuring that this would not turn into some cheesy endeavor that would be made fun of by the masses.

There are variety of videos so far entered into the contest, but judging by the quality, it's certainly not too late to compete for the top prize.

My favorite is this one, not because she's a good rapper or that it's original, but it's fun to see a big woman with reading glasses on doing some beatboxing.

It would be too easy to cap this post off by saying "word to your mother" so I won't.