PIDA -

Facebook users select the winners of PIDA People’s Choice Award

This year’s PIDA sees the launch of a new prize – PIDA People’s choice Award. The competition goes broad and online and anyone with a Facebook account can go in and vote for their favourite project. In short: the award will go to the project with the largest number of likes and shares on Facebook.

For those who may not know, PIDA is a packaging design event in France, Germany and Sweden where the main happening is a student competition for packaging design students. The competition is an integral part of their study programme and offers them an opportunity to work on a real project and to show their result to a larger audience and potential future employers. The competition now runs for the thirteenth consecutive year. And the big new feature for 2017 is the PIDA People’s choice Award – a prize presented to the entry that gets the most likes and shares on Facebook.

“This year we want to try something new to create more curiosity and interest in PIDA but also show all the hard work from the students to a broader audience,” says Elin Li, PIDA Project Manager. “PIDA Social Media Award makes it possible for each and every one to vote for their favourite entry. This is regardless of whether you are a design student, an industry professional, or a consumer.”

How the competition works
The first PIDA People’s choice Award will be featured on the Swedish event that takes place on 23 May in Stockholm. BillerudKorsnäs will launch the competition about two weeks before the event and the prize ceremony by publishing all submitted finalist videos on the PIDA Facebook page. The students have been given instructions to produce a short film where they present the function and design of their packaging project – a sort of elevator pitch. And then anyone with a Facebook account can go in and vote for their favourites. The voting is open right up to the date of the respective country’s event. More information about exact dates will follow. Every vote counts and the entry with the most likes and shares will be the winner - or to be more exact - the people’s winner.

The winner of PIDA People’s choice award will be presented together with the other winners at the PIDA event.

Who can enter this competition?
All students nominated for the PIDA 2017 finale will be invited to compete with their short video to the PIDA People’s choice Award. To enter, students have to make a 2-minute film presenting their packaging project. For further information about competition rules, please see instructions for PIDA People’s choice Award.

Challenging packaging design
“This year’s PIDA is all about challenging conventional packaging, we want the students to create packaging concepts that brings us to the next level of functionality, creativity, communication – and above all: sustainability,” says Elin Li. “Packaging can play an important part when it comes to many of the challenges we see in our society today, the right choice in packaging design and material can help solve environmental issues as well as increase consumer experience. In this way, PIDA can be an initiative to help driving the development of the packaging industry and challenge both ourselves and a new generation of packaging designers.”

“Many of the packs we see today aren’t even recyclable", says Elin Li, PIDA Project Manager.

More about the 2017 brief “Challenge the conventional” can be found here.

At the 2017 PIDA events, in addition to the People’s choice Award, winners will be selected in the following categories:

• The PIDA Gold Award

• Best Level of Shelf Impact

• Best Level of Innovation

• Best Level of User-Friendliness

• Highest Level of Sustainability

The events also include a seminar featuring interesting keynote speakers who share their knowledge and insights into current packaging-related topics.