GPJ unveils design competition Brand X with Under Armour

“Brands today are looking for new methods to elevate the customer’s experience across all touch points, and experience design is a growing discipline driving that shift.”

The first-ever national competition of its kind, Brand X will expose college students to the emerging multidisciplinary approach to brand marketing that emphasizes richer, more meaningful interactions between brands and consumers. Experience design unites every marketing channel around a powerful and consistent brand promise, including digital, public relations, advertising, social media, direct, experiential and more. The competition is intended to be a platform that will bring industry attention to the growing importance of experience design as an exploding discipline within the marketing field and to introduce talented students to its practice.

Brand X will challenge student teams to develop a hypothetical Under Armour event campaign that begins 100 days out from the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia and will include digital, mobile and physical experiences that will deliver on Under Armour’s brand values in compelling, memorable ways, culminating at Olympic Park in Sochi. The winning team will be flown to the annual Event Marketing Summit (May 6-8 in Chicago) for a special awards ceremony in front of industry leaders, receive a cash prize and will be offered prestigious paid internship positions with a GPJ creative studio. Special coverage of this historic program will appear in Event Marketer, Event Design and on their web sites.

“We couldn’t be more excited to have the Under Armour brand play a central role in a competition we feel is helping to shape the future of brand marketing,” said Shana Gritsavage, Director of Global Events at Under Armour. “Brands today are looking for new methods to elevate the customer’s experience across all touch points, and experience design is a growing discipline driving that shift.”

Reflecting the multidisciplinary nature of experience design, Brand X student teams will be comprised of talents from four core areas: environmental design, graphic design, digital and copywriting. Students will come from programs at universities and colleges nationwide, forming teams through crowdsouced elements and via partnerships with colleges and universities.

“The really exciting part of Brand X, for me, is the fact that we’re uncovering the best up-and-coming design talent in the country and challenging them to get outside their comfort zone,” said John Trinanes, Senior Vice President of Creative with GPJ. “Students who might have never heard of experience design before are going to come together, learn and compete on a truly national stage with one of the world’s great brands.”