Smart announced the winners of their "Style Your Smart" worldwide design contest today, picking four designs out of 50,000 entries.
The winner of the €1,500 first prize, Tamir Shefer of Jaffa, Israel, plastered the Smart with beady-eyed, cow-nosed human faces reminiscent of an upbeat Dilbert cartoon. According to Smart, the design is "urban and human friendly at the same time and shows that cars and humans do belong together."
We think we've spotted more than one family member on the passenger door.
Second prize went to Elvis Tomljenovic, whose cardboard Smart is apparently recyclable and shouldn't be put on a forklift. Third prize was shared: Pedro Goncalves offered a combination of urban chic and grit (that's oddly reminiscent of the opening titles of Caroline in the City), while drake put the "iron" in "ironic" with a rust design for the car's plastic panels.
The idea for a design contest was borne from Daimler's "Business Innovation Community" social networking intranet, and was undoubtedly a success: the designs at Style Your Smart got over 600,000 ratings during the six week contest.
"The response to this competition greatly exceeded our expectations – in
terms of both quantity and quality", said Marc Langenbrinck, Managing
Director and head of marketing for Smart. "It shows the enthusiasm that the Smart brand generates."
While the prizes have already been awarded, the site lives on. We expect to see Daimler taking further advantage of the cult status the Smart brand has achieved with future interactive marketing campaigns.
Photo: Daimler
