Brand X Challenge

The Brand X Experience Design Student Competition is a national competition for undergraduate design and marketing students enrolled at a college or university. The Brand X Challenge is a national experience design competition for undergraduate design, architecture and marketing students enrolled at a participating U.S. Participating student teams (up to four students each) will learn about the gr

owing experience design discipline as they develop an experiential activation featuring Sephora. The winning team will also be flown to the Experiential Marketing Summit (May 12, 2020 in Chicago) industry conference for a special awards ceremony in front of more than 1,000 industry leaders. Second-place team will receive $2,000 and third-place team wins $1,000. The goal of the Brand X Challenge: Expose students to the growing world of “experience design,” a fun and expanding segment of the design industry and one of the fastest-growing job sectors for design, architecture and marketing professionals. What is experience design? It’s the creation of live branded experiences that combine creative strategy with structural elements to bring a brand to life for its audience. If you’ve seen Coke’s Spring Break Village, the Jeep exhibit at the Auto Show or Best Buy’s college campus Ultimate Dorm Room, then you’ve seen some great examples of experience design. BRAND X PARTNERS
Brand X is produced by leading experience design company MAS Event + Design and Event Marketer magazine. In 2020, the program features Sephora. The Brand X Challenge invites students to design an experience for a real company. For 2020, students will design an experience for Sephora’s Sephoria House of Beauty. Managing the entry process and communications with students are the editors of Event Marketer magazine, the industry’s leading publication on experience design and marketing. WHY BRAND X IS UNIQUE
Brand X is the only student design challenge of its kind. By participating, you aren’t just creating “ideas”—you are concepting an experience for a real brand, Sephora. Participants will have access to a series of online training webcasts that will provide information on experience design and most importantly, Sephora’s goals, design parameters, background on their audience, and the brand’s heritage. Each team will be assigned a “design mentor” from MAS Event + Design to help along the way. And finally, Brand X will be judged by experiential marketers from many of the companies you know, including Intel, HP, Nintendo, Activision, Chrysler, Xbox and more. Quite simply, there’s never been a student design challenge like this—you’ll learn about one of the fastest-growing forms of design, create an experience for Sephora and potentially rub shoulders with some of the best designers on the planet! PARTICIPATING IN BRAND X
Excited? Brand X might just be the most fun you’ve ever had participating in a student design challenge. THERE ARE FOUR PARTICIPATION PHASES. LEARN PHASE. Once you confirm your team’s participation in Brand X by February 21, we will contact you to say hello and send you full information on the program. From there, you’ll have a week to watch two brief but informative online “training webcasts.” The first will teach you what experience design is. And the second will give you an overview of the Sephora brand. You’ll need to view both webcasts in order to advance in this year’s Brand X Challenge. See Official Rules at www.eventmarketer.com/brandxchallenge. CREATIVE PHASE. Once you complete the two web training sessions, you’ll have a few weeks to put together an initial concept that ties into the overall guidelines of Brand X. This is when the fun really begins! REFINE PHASE. We will assign one of MAS Event + Design’s designers to review your initial concept and provide feedback on what’s working and what you might want to change or enhance. This is a great opportunity for one-on-one coaching by a design “mentor.” Following feedback, you’ll then have a few weeks to prepare your final submission. SUBMISSION AND JUDGING PHASE. You will submit your final entry online. You’ll upload your entry elements from your computer and we will confirm receipt. From there, cross your fingers while our judges review the entries and select the finalists and winners. CONTACT AT BRAND X
Your day-to-day contact is Kaylee Hultgren at Event Marketer magazine. Contact her with questions or comments at 212-621-4876 and via email at [email protected]. MORE INFO: FACEBOOK.COM/BRANDXCHALLENGE