element14 announces winners of online community contests

BANGALORE, INDIA: element14 (formerly Farnell), the industry’s first fusion of commerce and community supporting millions of engineers and purchasing professionals worldwide, recently engaged its online community forum members via two creative contests. Held as part of the new brand launch celebrations, it provided members of the community a chance to win $1,500 and $500 for its ‘Design an element14 T-shirt’ and ‘Be in Your Element’ contests respectively.

“These competitions reveal the creativity of our element14 community, and it was really interesting to see what people came up with. The success of this competition has given us great ideas for future competitions and impetus to keep innovating,” said Nader Tadros, Marketing & eCommerce Director, element14, Asia Pacific.

“We are happy with the participation from the community members and their strong response highlights the vibrancy and creativity of element14’s online members. Since late 2010, over 400,000 customers worldwide have visited our website and our unique and dynamic online community portal provides integral value to our customers, as this is the place where electronic design engineers, procurement professionals and even students and hobbyists are able to interact closely and exchange salient information and feedback.”

‘Design an element14 T-shirt’
Winner of the t-shirt design contest was Ms. Diosa Blancaver from the Philippines. Diosa’s entry scored high within the element14 judging panel, as she was able to give a fresh approach to the company’s brand image, creatively incorporating the tagline “Be in Your Element” and the company colours.

Diosa, who enjoys designing, said that she found the process challenging as it required her to combine aesthetics while adhering element14’s corporate identity. Being a recent user of the community, she was surprised to learn that it has much to offer and said: “The community site is a very good outlet for electronic design engineers as they can share and gather insightful ideas and pointers from experts around the world.”

‘Be in Your Element’
element14 was also curious to find out what it meant to their community members to be ‘in their element’ (pun intended) and Dave Jones’ video response clinched the top prize with the most number of votes from the community members. Dave, from Australia, is an active member of the element14 community.

"Not only has he posted several video product reviews on the forum, he also runs an electronics engineering video blog and co-hosts an electronics radio show. He plans to use the prize money to build an autonomous stable video quadcopter platform, and hopes to inspire others to produce original content for the electronics community.”

Besides creating a new dimension for conversation and collaboration, element14’s pioneering blend of commerce and online community continues to evolve and expand globally. The site provides reviews and latest mod innovations on its popular resident program, the Ben Heck Show. In addition, new professionals are constantly being added to its “Ask an Expert” panel.

All of these combine to provide the collaborative engineering community and electronics store a unique edge in the industry, as element14 continues to be the leading distributor in the region.