Watch Design Community for Swarovski EnlightenedTM by HYVE

Swarovski Enlightned™ invited designers and creative consumers from all over the world to engage in the watch-design-community. The community creation was based on a design-contest, which was open for designers (e.g. design students) but also for people who are generally interested in watches, gemstones and related topics.

More than 1,650 participants joined the community to showcase their talent and submit their designs. In total, they created over 2,000 watches in different segments ranging from classic to sporty and from abstract to realistic. Altogether, community members placed 147,000 gemstones, made more than 6,000 evaluations and contributed 1,750 qualitative comments.

A lively community evolved across cultural boundaries. The contest spread from Austria to the US and created a buzz in countries such as China, India, Russia, Turkey and Iran. Within 8 weeks, the website created more than 7.5 million views. Several websites, amongst others 15 design related communities, magazines and blogs referred to the contest without any advertisement spending for it. The strong viral effects helped promoting the contest and creating awareness for the new brand.

The designs of the best artists where presented at "Baselworld", the largest watch fair worldwide and are currently realized.

Swarovski Enlightned™ invited designers and creative consumers from all over the world to engage in the watch-design-community. The community creation was based on a design-contest, which was open for designers (e.g. design students) but also for people who are generally interested in watches, gemstones and related topics. The contest was conducted within two categories: With the watch configuration toolkit, participants were able to create their own watches selecting from 24 components (case & bezel, wristband, background, clock face) in various colours and through the selection and free placement of 108 different EnlightenedTM gemstones. In the second category, freely created watch designs could be uploaded.

More than 1,650 participants joined the community to showcase their talent and submit their designs. In total, they created over 2,000 watches in different segments ranging from classic to sporty and from abstract to realistic. Participants uploaded own avatars and pictures and evaluated the configured as well as the freely created designs either with short evaluations (1-5 points) or with "vote&win" evaluations within different categories (from "The design of this watch looks good" to "In particular I like the shape"). Comments on designs and suggestions for improvements have been provided. An emotional but also detailed voting took place. Community members placed 147,000 gemstones, made more than 6,000 evaluations and contributed 1,750 qualitative comments. Members supported each other, explored relationships, provided feedback for each other, and challenged others.

A lively community evolved across cultural boundaries. The contest spread from Austria to the US and created a buzz in countries such as China, India, Russia, Turkey and Iran. Within 8 weeks, the website created more than 7.5 million views. Several websites, amongst others 15 design related communities, magazines and blogs referred to the contest without any advertisement spending for it. Furthermore, more than 2,000 invitations to join the contest were sent by community members. The strong viral effects helped promoting the contest and creating awareness for the new brand.

With the design-contest customer preferences regarding wristwatches with applied gems could be identified and a printed trend book was created by EnlightenedTM, displaying the user designs from the online contest. The designs of the best artists where presented at "Baselworld", the largest watch fair worldwide and are currently realized. Moreover, EnlightenedTM got insights into trends and innovative ideas. EnlightenedTM could communicate and create awareness for the new brand "EnlightenedTM", in particular at the Baselworld 2008, and could position itself as a customer-oriented and innovative company.

According to Core77 (www.core77.com) — the world leading online portal for industrial design — this contest presents the best community design contest ever seen, enabling its members to create their own watches and to connect with each other: "Congratulations on launching that site. It is remarkably full-featured. In fact, I don't recall ever seeing an online competition site like this, with the configuration tool, the profiles, the members are, voting, etc. Kudos to you and your team and good luck with generating entries!"