What is a Design Challenge and how does it work?

The basics

Design Challenges are our most popular content partnership, both for brands and for Spoak members. During a Challenge, which runs 10 days, Spoak members are tasked with designing a virtual space using our tools and your brand's products. The designs are based on a creative prompt that's written by you.

The prompts

They can be focused on whatever you want to draw attention to: your entire catalog, a new product launch, a big sale — the world is your oyster. (Though the Spoak team will help advise if you're feeling unsure.)

Some examples include:

Design a Coastal Grandma bathroom including patterned wallpaper and towels from Weezie.
Design a completely tiled room, floor to ceiling, using design-forward tiles made by Haustile.
Design Barbie’s Dreamhouse using paint from the Backdrop x Barbie Dreamhouse collection.
Design the ultimate relaxation space using your favorite Homebody sofa. Bonus points for featuring your furry best friend.

The prizes

Sponsors are responsible for the winner's prize (typically a gift card or product equivalent to $300 or more in value). Many brands also offer smaller 2nd and 3rd place prizes as well as participation incentives (like a one-time promo code). There's no obligation one way or another, but the bigger the prize/incentives, the higher the participation and hype. We recommend a grand prize above $1,000 in value and a participation incentive (like a one-time 20% off promo code) for maximum participation.

Other than determining the prize and prompt, there is no work required from you!

Promotion for your brand

We will create a promotional design in Spoak to promote the challenge and serve as inspiration for participants. We'll also use this design to promote on our website, as well as to launch the challenge on Instagram as a collaborative post between your account and Spoak. This will show up on both of our IG grids for maximum awareness and participation.

Throughout the 10 days your Challenge is running, your brand is being promoted in the following ways:

Homepage banner ad (running for all 10 days)
2x in-feed posts on Instagram
1x reel on Instagram and TikTok
1x story post on Instagram
Dedicated email send (about the challenge)
Current Design Challenge banner on our website

Our social media reach is >6.5M, and our newsletter circulation is >100K.

Selecting the winner

Each Challenge sees 250+ participants and receives around 50-100 submissions on average, depending on the prompt and the prize. At the end of the Challenge, we open up the submissions for public voting (voting takes place on our website and is promoted via social media by Spoak and the sponsor). Votes determine the top 5, and then as the brand partner, you ultimately choose the winner(s).

Other perks and examples

As a sponsor, you have the rights to use the designs on your owned media channels. You will also get the names and emails of the participants.

Here are some examples of recent Design Challenges we've run.